Thank you for your interest regarding In Darwin's Footsteps. In Darwin's Footsteps will be a one-hour documentary
Frank J. Sulloway – Darwin Scholar
Frank J. Sulloway is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. He has a Ph.D. in the history of science from Harvard University (1978) and is a former MacArthur Fellow. His book Freud, Biologist of the Mind: Beyond the Psychoanalytic Legend (1979) provides a radical reanalysis of the origins and validity of psychoanalysis and received the Pfizer Award of the History of Science Society. In addition, Dr. Sulloway has written about the nature of scientific creativity, and, on this general topic, he has published extensively on the life and theories of Charles Darwin.
For the last two decades, Dr. Sulloway has also employed evolutionary theory to understand how family dynamics affect personality development, including that of creative geniuses. He has a particular interest in the influence that birth order exerts on personality and behavior. In this connection, he is the author of Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives (1996). Dr. Sulloway's researches on birth order and family dynamics have been featured on a variety of national television shows including "Nightline," the "Today Show," "Dateline NBC," the "Charlie Rose Show," and the Discovery Channel.
Dr. Sulloway has been the recipient of fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, New Jersey), the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science (University of California, Berkeley), the National Science Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Stanford, California). In addition, Dr. Sulloway is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a recipient of the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1997). He lives in Berkeley, California.
William H. Durham - Evolutionary Biologist
Bing Professor in Human Biology and Anthropological Sciences, and the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki University Fellow, has taught at Stanford since 1977. Bill's main interests are ecology and evolution, the interactions of genetic and cultural change in human populations, and the challenges to conservation and community development in the tropics, especially in Galapagos and the Amazon. His publications include Scarcity and Survival in Central America (Stanford Press 1979; in Spanish, by UCA Editores 1988); Coevolution: Genes, Culture, and Human Diversity (Stanford Press, 1991); The Social Causes of Environmental Destruction in Latin America (U. of Michigan Press, 1995, co-edited with M. Painter); Voyage to Galapagos, an educational CD-ROM co-written and produced in 2002 by MW Productions, San Francisco) and a forthcoming book, The Social Science of Conservation: Lessons from the Neotropics. Bill served 4 years as Director of Human Biology and 3 years as Chair of the Department of Anthropological Sciences. Recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship for his research, Bill has also received a number of awards, including the Gores, Dinkelspiel, Rhodes, ASSU, and Bing Fellow Awards for his teaching at Stanford. Bill is currently the Editor of the Annual Review of Anthropology and has led the search committee for the Lang Professor Chair in Environmental Anthropology at Stanford.
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Mark W. Moffett - Entomologist
In 1975 Mark was admitted to Beloit College, where he published 5 scientific papers and earned a B.A. in 1979, with a Phi Beta Kappa and high honors (also completing a behavior course at Marine Biological Labs, Woods Hole). Supported by a National Science Foundation fellowship, he completed a Harvard Ph.D. (1980-87) under the world’s most famous ecologist, Edward O. Wilson. For his dissertation on the ethnology and systematics of ants, he traveled 29 continuous months through 14 Asian countries, taking the first photos of his life in order to document ant behavior. While he was still on this trip, a National Geographic editor saw his images and flew to India to convince him to work for them. Ever since, he has remained in the magazine's core group of writer/photographers. After his doctorate, his work at Harvard continued with a National Science Foundation funded position to curate the ant collection (1987-91) and then as Researcher in Entomology (1991-97). In 1990 his interests shifted to canopy biology and he wrote High Frontier: Exploring the Tropical Rainforest Canopy. Mark has worked in more than sixty countries, from the tops of the world’s tallest trees, to a quarter mile deep in a Venezuelan sinkhole, where six months ago he found a new frog species that now bears his name. In 1995, Atlanta public television station WPBA-TV produced Seeing the Forest for the Trees, a half-hour special about his life and perspectives by Emmy-winning director Conne Ward-Cameron.
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Greg de Nevers - Botanist
Greg was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area. He attended UC Santa Cruz, receiving a BA in Environmental Studies in 1980. His Senior Thesis was a flora of the Kingston Range, an isolated mountain range in the eastern Mojave Desert. After college he taught biology at Kuskokwim Community College in Bethel, Alaska. He then spent three years in Panama documenting the flora of the lands of the Kuna Indians (San Blas, east of the canal). During this time he developed an interest in the systematics of neotropical palms, which he continues to pursue. For 13 years Greg was Resident Biologist at Pepperwood, a 3,000 acre preserve in Sonoma County, CA owned by the California Academy of Sciences. At Pepperwood Greg developed a strong interest in newts (Taricha). For the past three years Greg was the Resident Biologist at Audubon Canyon Ranch’s Bolinas Lagoon Preserve. He has done botanical field work in Tanzania, Madagascar, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Yugoslavia and Mexico.
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Roger A. Lang, Jr. - Conservationist
Mr. Lang's professional experience spans a variety of high-tech industries. In 1986, he co-founded C-ATS Software Inc. and worked as vice president of client services. In 1989, he launched Infinity Financial Technology, Inc., which grew to become the world's leading supplier of derivatives trading and risk management software. As founder/CEO, he led Infinity through its initial public offering in 1996 and its merger with SunGard Data Systems, Inc. in 1998, where Mr. Lang remained Chairman of Infinity, a SunGard Company, until July 1999. Mr. Lang was named one of the 50 most influential people in the history of Financial Risk Management by the industry’s flagship magazine, Risk Magazine. Currently, Mr. Lang is founder/chairman of Cutthroat Communications Inc. (www.cutthroatcom.com), based in Bozeman, MT. Mr. Lang is also active in the Southwest Montana ranching community and is an avid conservationist. As an established Silicon Valley entrepreneur, he currently sits on several boards of both for-profit and non-profit organizations. He graduated from Stanford University, Phi Beta Kappa, with honors and distinction in Anthropology in 1983, and a master’s degree in Latin American Studies in 1985.
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Lance Milbrand - Cameraman
Lance Milbrand works as a National Geographic Explorer Director of Photography. One of the highlights of his career was working with the great people who made up the Darwin's Footsteps scientific team. Lance says; "The people really made a difference on this project. The environment in the Galapagos is very challenging and our experts were so willing to give of themselves, they worked incredibly hard. Their stories and the way they presented information on Darwin, the flora and fauna is truly amazing."
Lance regularly works for the National Geographic Channel TODAY show. Other clients include the University of California, Irvine, Southern California Edison, and CBS Sunday Morning. Lance has worked with many of the world's finest media storytellers. These people include Howard Hall and the Macgillivray Freeman IMAX production team. Lance has worked with prestigious organizations such as the BBC, and the US Federal Government, National Marine Fisheries Service. Lance is married to Jeanne Milbrand and the couple lives in Carlsbad, California.
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Kathy Turco- Sound Recordist
Kathy Turco is the founder and sole owner of Alaska's Spirit Speaks: Sound & Science. She has been recording natural sounds in Alaska since 1987, and has owned a state of the art digital audio studio since 1994. Originally trained in zoology, she earned a M.S. degree in marine biology, with subsequent training as a natural sound recording artist and radio producer. She has worked as a sound person on wildlife documentaries for National Geographic, Europe Discovery, New Zealand Geographic & NBC, and records natural sounds in the field for award winning films like Alaska: Spirit of the Wild and Winged Migration. She is the writer, voice talent, sound designer, and producer of science audio programs aired on National Public Radio and British Broadcasting Corporation, and more recently for science education web sites for the University of Alaska, Texas and Tennessee & National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. Also as part of her business, she has provided natural sound effects from her extensive audio library for feature films such as Jurassic Park III and Dinosaur, and for her work as a sound designer and mixer for national and international ethnographic & wildlife documentary films, radio series, CDs, museum exhibits, visitor & heritage centers and aquariums. She works in collaboration with Alaska Native people documenting their oral history and with other sound designers & musicians on a variety of audio and film projects all over the world.
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Patrick Gambuti, Jr. - Editor
Emmy Award winning Patrick Gambuti, Jr. is currently working on a short film entitled “No Oxygen”, which he also directed. He just wrapped up a documentary for HBO’s America Undercover series titled “Crank”, which he also co-produced. Gambuti recently won an Emmy for editing “Suicide” for HBO.
The middle part of 2002 was spent working on shorter format pieces for clients such as WNET/PBS, CAMI (Columbia Artists Management, Inc.) and Eames Yates Productions, Inc. In the early part of 2002 he wrapped up a special for PBS entitled “What’s Up in the Environment”, a show designed to peak middle school children’s interest in the environmental field.
A multi-version “making of” documentary for BRAVO on the dance theatre show Aeros, called “Aeros: Inside Upside Down”, aired in late 2001. The Jackson Hole Film Festival was the premiere location for “Under Antarctic Ice” a high definition documentary for the PBS Nature series slated for air in January 2003. “Suicide” a documentary for HBO’s America Undercover series and “Dizzy” a biography on Dizzy Gillespie for A&E were delivered in early 2001. His company pgco, inc. has completed projects for WNET/PBS, A&E, MTV, AMC, BRAVO and HBO, among others, since its inception in 1999.
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Michael Whalen - Composer
Emmy award-winner Michael Whalen's creative journey has taken him from
one musical extreme to another. At only 37, the extraordinary variety
of his musical experience gives him equal comfort in front of a
symphony orchestra or working in his Synclavier-equipped,
state-of-the-art studio. A veteran of hundreds of TV and film scores,
advertising scores, and numerous themes and corporate identity pieces
his music has been heard by literally hundreds of millions of people.
His most recent scoring credits include the 8-hour National Geographic
special "The Shape of Life", the 4-hour PBS/American Experience
special
"Ulysses S. Grant", and work for CBS, Disney, Hallmark, Turner
A & E
and many others.
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Bruce Weiss – Producer/Director
Has been producing films and video projects for the past fifteen years.
His work encompasses all types of production, including feature films,
commercials, documentary, television, and home video. His feature film
credits include The Unbelievable Truth, released by Miramax to widespread
acclaim in 1990; Trust, released by Fine Line and showed well at the
Cannes Film Festival in 1992; in 1995 Bruce co-produced Sam Sheppard’s
Curse of the Starving Class, starring James Woods, Kathy Bates and Lou
Gosset; in 1996 Bruce produced The Mantis Murder, in 1998 Bruce produced
Side Streets in partnership with Merchant-Ivory Productions, which was
released in 2000. Most recently, Bruce completed production on Island
of the Dead, a psychological thriller starring Malcolm McDowell among
other notables. Mr. Weiss’s company, Atlantic Pictures, located
at the Tribeca Film Center, is currently developing several feature
projects across a wide range of film genres. Bruce’s documentary
projects include Charlie Victor Romeo, a film adaptation of the critically
acclaimed Off-Broadway play, also The Wild Bunch – A History of
the American Cowgirl; more recently, Cretaceous Journeys – The
Biodiversity of Ancient Worlds, a three-part series to be aired on TV
and produced in conjunction with leading Museums; and finally, Bruce
Weiss is producing In Darwin’s Footsteps, a documentary of a team
of scientists who have visited the Galapagos to retrace Darwin’s
activities there, better understand his initial observations that led
to his tremendous insights, and document the ecological state of the
Galapagos since Darwin’s time.
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