Meet the Expedition Leaders

2008 Iceland Expedition Leaders, left to right: Santiago Walker, Apryl Richards, Charles Dye

Documentary Film
Charles Dye. University of Arizona, B.A.; Montana State University, M.F.A. candidate. Charles is an independent filmmaker and photographer based in Bozeman, Montana. He spent six years racing cyclo-cross and mountain bikes professionally for the Cannondale-New Balance racing team in Europe, Japan, and North America. After earning a certificate in Documentary Video Production from the University of Washington, Charles made a short film, Saving the Snow Leopards of Mongolia, which appeared in National Geographic Wild Chronicles in 2002. Last of the Gum Men, about the chicle harvesters in the jungles of Guatemala, was seen nationwide on PBS in 2003. A Cat Called Elvis (2007), about his search—with his wife and son—for snow leopards in the western highlands of Mongolia, is currently the #1 downloaded show on the 2007 Webby-award winning Terra podcast (www.lifeonterra.com). Charles teaches film at the Berks Community Television's FilmCamp in Reading, Pennsylvania, and recently helped establish the Montana Outdoor Science School's new Natural History Filmmaking Workshops. Still a devoted cyclist, he is pursuing his Master in Fine Arts in Science and Natural History Filmmaking at Montana State University.

Apryl Richards. University of Washington. B.A.; Columbia University, M.F.A. candidate. Apryl graduated cum laude from the University of Washington, where she concentrated in Experimental Digital Video and was a Mary Gates Research Scholar. She was a Production Design teaching assistant and guest lecturer at the Center for Digital Art and Experimental Media and received an Award for Academic Excellence in a Technical Program for her carpentry work at the Center for Wood Construction. Apryl worked as a technical illustrator and graphic designer for the Microsoft Corporation, oversaw set construction for The Brand Upon the Brain!, an independent film feature, and was a project manager for Swingset Film & Audio, a start-up film production company established to support low-budget filmmakers, musicians, and visual artists. As the director of youth programs at the Maysles Institute in New York she developed curriculum for a summer documentary film program for children in Harlem. Apryl is currently pursuing her Master in Fine Arts in Film at Columbia, where she is a Digital Media Fellow and Final Cut Pro instructor. In addition to being a talented filmmaker, Apryl is an accomplished carpenter.

Climate & Geology
Santiago Walker. Rice University, B.S.; Yale University, M.A. Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago to a British-Grenadian father and a Venezuelan-Trinidadian mother, Santiago graduated cum laude from Rice University, where he majored in Earth Science focusing on Petroleum Geosciences. During the summer of his freshman year he was a Research Assistant on the Marion Dufrense, a French oceanographic research vessel. That summer he happily got down and dirty with cores (mud samples) from the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. While an undergraduate at Rice he participated in two study abroad programs, one in Rio de Janeiro and the other in Costa Rica. Santiago went on to pursue a Master's in International Development Economics at Yale, where he focused on the interplay between development and the environment. He has traveled widely in Japan, Singapore, Western Europe and many Caribbean countries. Among other international adventures he taught English in Brazil, helped paint a stadium in Mexico, and explored the Caribbean coast of Panama. Santiago led a Putney Student Travel community service program in the Dominican Republic in 2007. He currently works for BP Trinidad and Tobago in Strategy and Planning, and teaches at a local community college where he is designing a course in Environmental Economics. Santiago speaks Spanish, Portuguese and Caribbean Creole.