Cultural Specialists

Cultural

Some of our voyages bring us deep into other cultures, where we have the chance to take part in local traditions and get a firsthand view of another way of life. In those places, we rely on our cultural specialists to interpret everyday customs and help us make meaningful connections with people we meet in our destinations. They may be archaeologists or anthropologists who can illuminate ancient civilizations in the Mediterranean or island cultures in the South Pacific.

Others are art historians or ethnomusicologists who give us a closer look at the rich artistic heritage of a destination through informative talks, guided tours, and concerts. All of them have spent time immersed in the regions they are exploring—and some of them were born and raised there.  

Often, we will welcome a local expert on board to offer insights and a personal perspective—such as a resident artist or a Tlingit cultural interpreter who sheds light on Alaska’s Indigenous traditions.  

Cultural Specialist

Daniel Odess

Dan Odess is an archaeologist with extensive experience conducting research in Alaska, northern Canada, and arctic Russia. His work focuses on how people have met the challenges of living in extreme environments, including: what they ate and how they procured it, how they organized their technology, their social strategies, and what it meant to colonize a place where nobody had ever lived before. In addition to his work in the Arctic he is part of the team that recently discovered ancient tracks at White Sands National Park, currently the oldest solid evidence for humans in the Western Hemisphere. His approach to research is multidisciplinary, involving collaboration with Indigenous people, paleoecologists, biologists, paleontologists, physicists, and geologists. He is keenly interested in how the knowledge of Indigenous people can inform our understanding of the past and how in turn, the study of the past can help inform the decisions we and they face today. Dan is a natural teacher, with great enthusiasm for archaeology and the Arctic, and is a firm believer that far more can be learned and taught in the field than in the classroom. He has held a variety of academic and government positions including Professor of Anthropology and Curator of Archaeology at the University of Alaska, and Chief Scientist for the U.S. National Park Service.

Cultural Specialist

Tua Pittman

Internationally acclaimed as a traditional master navigator, Tua has navigated canoes across the great oceans of our planet from the coastlines of Asia through to the shores of the Americas for more than 30 years, without the use of modern instruments. This Cook Islander, also of New Zealand Maori and Tahitian bloodlines, uses an ancient navigational system based upon careful observation of celestial bodies—sun, moon, and stars—as well as using ocean swells, flight patterns of birds, and other natural markers. Tua’s efforts to adopt and promote the sailing arts of the ancients have been recognized throughout the Pacific. In 2008 he was designated a Pwo navigator on the island of Satawal in Micronesia and inducted by sacred ritual into this rarefied society of master navigators by Grand Elder and Master Navigator Mau Piailug. In addition to earning prominence among traditional voyaging societies, Tua is known throughout Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia for his mentoring of young islanders in the traditional cultures and languages of their ancestors. Tua is a respected chieftain of his island homeland, a dancer, drummer, athlete, and gifted speaker. His lecture topics, accompanied by excellent visual materials, include the origin and migration theory of the Pacific people; ancient traditional voyaging and navigation; traditional voyaging in this modern day; open-air star presentation and identification—navigating Pacific skies; and Pacific Ocean traditions and cultures.

Cultural Specialist

Patrick MacQuarrie

Patrick MacQuarrie grew up on a wheat farm on the Columbia River Basin. In college, he studied engineering, international relations, and geography, getting his PhD in International Water Management. Both Irish and American, Patrick has lived and worked abroad for the last 25 years, is a keen conversationalist and passionate musician. He brings extensive and deep knowledge of river basin systems to Lindblad’s team of experts, having worked on crafting and implementing water sharing agreements with UN-Water, the Environmental Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Mekong River Commission, and conducted research and taught at acclaimed Universities worldwide. Patrick has waded in nearly every meandering river in the world; the Columbia and Colorado river basins in North America, the Amazon and Lake Titicaca basins in South America, the Mekong, Salween, and Irrawaddy, in Southeast Asia and the Murry-Darling in Australia, several basins across Europe and West Asia, multiple basins in the Middle East and North Africa, and intimate knowledge of waterways in Ireland and the British Isles. He now shares his insightful yet personal experience with guests aboard Lindblad’s authentic and memorable voyages.

Cultural Specialist

Jacqueline Windh

Jacqueline is a PhD scientist, a best-selling author and photographer, and an elected Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. She completed her doctorate studies in structural geology at the University of Western Australia, working as an exploration geologist on three continents before leaving that industry to follow more environmentally friendly pursuits. For the past two decades she has worked as a photojournalist and as a wilderness guide and adventurer, mainly in the Pacific Northwest, South America, and Antarctica. She is author or major contributor to four books. Her photographs and words have been published worldwide, and she has written and presented radio documentaries for both the CBC and the ABC. She is currently working on two books and involved in several adventure film projects. In 2021, Jacqueline was awarded the Sir Christopher Ondaatje Medal for Exploration by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. A dual Canadian/Australian citizen, she lives on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Cultural Specialist

Richard McColl

Richard McColl is a British freelance writer, conflict resolution specialist, holds a PhD in Social Sciences and foreign correspondent based either in the lofty altitudes of Bogotá or in the sweltering lowlands of the garciamarquian where he runs two small guesthouses. His writing and reporting has appeared in some 30 publications worldwide, appears regularly on television and radio shows as a commentator on events in Colombia and he hosts a weekly online radio show called "Colombia Calling". He is currently working on his first novel based on his experiences in Colombia as a hotelier entitled: " The Mompos Project"

Cultural Specialist

Julia Esteve

Julia Estève got her PhD in History of Religions at the EPHE in Paris. Her research encompasses the spectrum of the different components of the pre-modern Khmer religion for which she uses Archaeological and Epigraphical tools as well as Art History. After teaching for six years at Mahidol University in Thailand, she now devotes herself to her various research projects in Cambodia as well as to the dissemination of the latest discoveries concerning Khmer history and religions to a wider audience.

Cultural Specialist

Paolo Servadei

Paolo Servadei was born in northern Italy, close to the Adriatic coast near Ravenna, the first capital of the Byzantine Empire. In his youth he studied handwritten chronicles from the middle age, which sparked his interest in history. Exploring the Western Balkans in his mother’s city car ignited his passion for adventure, and by the age of nineteen, he had already traveled by land all the way to India and back. He moved to Bologna, the oldest university of Christianity, to follow courses in Law, Social Sciences and Sociology, taking a special interest in Anthropology. The experience of living in a medieval city full of art and history, and his early rough journeys in far-away countries, shaped core aspects of his nature that are still relevant today: deep appreciation for art and beauty, love for knowledge and adventure, and a strong passion for cuisine and photography. The following decades saw him study local culture and history during his extensive travels in the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East, the Indian sub-continent and East Asia. Currently calling Thailand home, Paolo has spent about one fourth of his adult life living in what he calls “his first love”: Indo-Asia. A bit of a walking Wikipedia of information and a storyteller at heart, Paolo welcomes you to ask him about your curiosities regarding the fascinating places and people we have the good fortune to explore together.

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Cultural