Charles Wohlforth

Charles Wohlforth is a life-long Alaska resident and prize-winning author of numerous books about Alaska. His work includes writing about science and the environment, politics and history, travel, and as-told-to biography. In 2004, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published Wohlforth’s widely acclaimed nonfiction account of climate change in the Arctic as experienced by the Eskimos and the scientists studying it, titled The Whale and the Supercomputer . The book won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology, among numerous other national and regional citations for science, culture, and journalism. His current projects include an upcoming book for St. Martin’s Press with the working title Hidden Waters: Human Nature and the Fate of the Oceans .

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Robyn Higdon

Robyn Higdon is the Director of Mediated Experiences at the Exploratorium. She is a Principal Investigator on the museum's International Polar Year Project, Ice Stories: Dispatches from Polar Scientists, and hosted live Ice Stories webcasts from Barrow, Alaska in winter 2008.

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Dr. Ku'ulei Rodgers

As part of the Coral Reef Ecology Lab at the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology (University of Hawai'i) since 1993, Dr. Ku’ulei Rodgers has worked on a wide range of projects that have focused on both introduced and endemic marine species. As co-principal investigator for the Coral Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program, Ku’ulei played a pivotal role in developing an on-going statewide monitoring program in 1998. This has led to research related to anthropogenic impacts that influence nearshore reef condition including aspects of human trampling and bioindicators of decline in coral reefs. Research on global and climate change impacts include manipulative experimentation to understand the effects of temperature and ocean acidification on biological organisms. A number of projects are directed at producing data required for sound environmental management of tropical marine coastal ecosystems.

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Xavier Cortada

Xavier Cortada has created art installations in the North Pole (2008) and South Pole (2007) to address environmental issues at every point in between. Cortada has worked with groups across the world to produce numerous collaborative art projects, including eco-art interventions in Finland, Latvia and in his hometown of Miami, as well as peace murals in Cyprus and Northern Ireland, child welfare murals in Bolivia and Panama, AIDS murals in Geneva and South Africa.

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Mary Miller

Mary Miller is a science writer, producer, and Webcast host for the Exploratorium. She is also director of the Osher Fellowship program that allows the museum to bring leading scientists, artists and scholars in residence to share their expertise with the Exploratorium staff and the public. Her academic background is in biology and science communication and one of her roles at the Exploratorium is to help introduce the museum audiences to research scientists and the ways in which they investigate and understand the natural world.

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Mayor Edward Itta

Mayor Itta is an Iñupiat whaler and hunter and has been active in community affairs and public policy. He was elected Mayor of the North Slope Borough in November of 2005. Over the past two decades, he has served in a variety of leadership positions for the regional government, including Chief Administrative Officer, Public Works Director, Planning Director, and Director of Capital Improvement Program Management. He is a husband, father, and grandfather, and he is committed to protecting the Iñupiat subsistence heritage and ensuring the long-term social and economic viability of all the North Slope communities.

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Eugene Brower

Eugene Brower is Barrow’s Deputy Fire Chief, whaling captain, and previous Mayor of the North Slope Borough, Barrow, Alaska.

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Scott G. Borgerson

Scott G. Borgerson is International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the former director of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy’s Institute for Leadership. He is an adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University working on issues related to the foreign policy implications of the melting Arctic, homeland security, and the future of shipping.

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Richard Glenn

Richard Glenn is a member of the United States Arctic Research Commission, Ilisagvik College Board of Trustees, board president of the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium, board member of the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States, and a member of the Native American Science Education Commission.

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Amber Inwood

Amber Inwood is a Science Educator at the Bishop Museum in Hawaii.

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Leon Geschwind

Leon Geschwind is a Project Manager at the Bishop Museum in Hawaii.

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Kathy Ahgeak

Kathy Ahgeak, the sister of Mayor Edward Itta, is a community leader in Barrow, Alaska.

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