Guides
Bill Robison – IE Expedition Leader
After studying biology at the University of Missouri, IE Director of Program Development Bill Robison has spent the past 13 years involved in tour planning, research, operations and tour leadership around the world. In the past five years he has traveled throughout Africa, South America, Europe and Asia for program research, and has served on the National Geographic’s Destination Stewardship panel.
Marius Burger - Naturalist
After 11 years as a research assistant with the Eastern Cape Nature Conservation, naturalist Marius Burger worked as a herpetologist and faunal specialist with the South African Biodiversity Institute, the Animal Demography Unit, and on a number of Environmental Impact Assessment projects. Marius has collaborated with the Smithsonian Institution and WWF-USA in Gabon and the Central African Republic on various projects. The author of numerous books, articles and papers on natural history and conservation topics, he lectures widely and has been a presenter on a variety of television nature programs, including on National Geographic and BBC World.
Donald Wright – Study Leader
Dr. Donald Wright, a specialist in Atlantic Africa, is Distinguished Teaching Professor of History, Emeritus, at the State University of New York, Cortland. His wide-ranging knowledge and interests are represented in his contributions on Africa in The Atlantic World: A History and his coverage of over 500 years of African history in The World and a Very Small Place in Africa. In 2010-11, Don visited each of the countries on this itinerary, lecturing on the history of the Gold Coast/Ghana, the Atlantic slave trade, Portuguese influences, and other historical and cultural topics. His research and travel in Africa have been sponsored by Fulbright-Hays and the National Endowment for the Humanities; he was honored in 2003 as a Scholar-in-Residence at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Study Center in Bellagio, Italy; and in 2006 he held the Mark Clark Visiting Chair of History at The Citadel.
