Meet the Scientists

Dr. Roman Dial
Environmental Scientist

Roman has a Ph.D. from Stanford, and a taste for adrenalin. He’s the original extreme scientist who uses wilderness sports to get to places no one else has ever been before. He designed "packrafts," which are one-person inflatables that allow a team of scientists to hike in and float out along snow-fed rivers. Born and bred in the wilderness, Roman is currently a professor of environmental science at Alaska Pacific University. He has spent more than 30 years living and studying the state. He is an experienced mountaineer, rafter, kayaker and wilderness trekker.

Dr. Sanjayan Muttulingam
Conservation Biologist

Dr. Sanjayan is originally from Sri Lanka but at an early age his family moved to Africa, which is where he grew up and discovered a passion for wildlife. Sanjayan joined The Nature Conservancy, one of the largest conservation organizations in the world in 1999. He is now the organization's lead scientist. He’s never happier than when he’s in the true wilderness, where he pushes field biology to its limits on "rapid assessments" of threatened habitats. He’s darted lions in Africa, tracked wolves along the coast of America, and kayaked with killer whales in British Columbia. He has a faculty appointment at the University of Montana, where he occasionally teaches graduate seminar classes.

Justine Evans
Wildlife Filmmaker

From the highest mountains of Romania, where shepherds guard their flocks from wolves, to the depths of Kenyan caves, where salt-mining elephants feel their way through the darkness, Justine’s career has led her to many fascinating parts of the world. Justine’s experience working up high with the latest rope access techniques has enabled her to reach the top of some of the highest tropical trees in Southeast Asia and the Americas to film canopy dwellers such as gibbons and orangutans. She has worked on such acclaimed series as Planet Earth.

Dr. Katey Walter
Ecologist

Katey is one of the most experienced environmental and marine biologists in Alaska. She holds a prestigious honor for her doctoral dissertation, in which she identified a new method of measuring and quantifying methane emissions. (Methane is a significant greenhouse gas.) Katey will stop at nothing to get to the most inhospitable of locations. She is experienced in kayaking, mountaineering, cross-country hiking and diving. Katey has reported on climate change in the Siberian Arctic and has appeared on television to report the changing climate to a global audience. She’s currently teaching and studying at University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she holds a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of Arctic Biology.

Gordon Buchanan
Wildlife Filmmaker

Gordon’s never looked back since he left his home on a remote Scottish island at 18 to go and work as a camera assistant in the jungles of West Africa. He’s spent his life filming exciting and deadly animals around the globe, specializing in large carnivores, and has built a reputation as one of the most talented and adventurous cameramen in the business. His job is not without risk – he’s trodden on lethal snakes, been chased by elephants, and had bears destroy his filming hides in both India and the Arctic. Like Justine, he filmed for the prestigious wildlife series, Planet Earth.

Steve Backshall
Biologist/Mountaineer

Steve Backshall is a British naturalist and was the TV host for the BBC kids program, The Really Wild Show. He loves snakes, especially the green anaconda, as well as bugs and wolves. He says his greatest fear is that his kids will only be able to see some of the critters he loves in picture books with "extinct" written underneath.

Read Steve's diary from his expedition to Borneo in 2006.