About Us

Elihu Rubin is Associate Professor of Architecture, Urbanism, and American Studies at Yale. He received a doctorate in architecture and a master’s in city planning from the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor of arts from Yale. His first book, Insuring the City: The Prudential Center and the Postwar Urban Landscape (Yale Univ. Press, 2012) was awarded the Kenneth T. Jackson Prize from the Urban History Association and the Lewis Mumford Award from the Society of American City & Regional Planning History. Mr. Rubin’s work focuses on the   making and meaning of the built environment; architectural preservation and the politics of “heritage planning.” An enthusiastic lecturer, Elihu has also made documentary videos relating to urban history, the politics of public spaces, urban redevelopment, architectural modernism, and street life.

Barbara Horlbeck, M.A., is an arts and culture professional with extensive global experience. She is a lecturer, writer, independent researcher and adjunct instructor of art history, and has developed and teaches college and university-level art history courses, including “Arts of the Islamic World” and “Arts of the Ancient World.”  As Founder of Arts and Influences, Barbara developed the successful Food for Thought Lecture and Lunch Series and created a series of in-depth seminars covering a broad range of topics from “Arts of the Medieval World,” and “Arts of China, India and Japan” to “Collectors, Collections, and the Modern Museum.”  As a docent at the Minneapolis Institute of Art for nearly 20 years, Barbara has led tours for educators, specialists and the general public. She has traveled in nearly 40 countries, including five continents and the North Pole, as well as Iran, India, Pakistan and China. Barbara loves helping travelers develop a deeper understanding of our rich artistic and cultural legacy while, at the same time, placing works of art and architecture in their rich historical context.

Current Tours

• Cruising the Great Lakes aboard Le Bellot
• Island Life Ancient Greece & Turkey - Aboard Le Bougainville

Gail Cornell is an architectural historian and graduate of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. She has been a frequent speaker on international study tours for 20 years. Her research and lectures on the history of Western architecture have taken her to Italy, Turkey, Greece, France, Spain, Portugal and North Africa numerous times. She is an Adjunct Faculty member of New York University and Hunter College and a Lecturer at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.   Gail also volunteers her time as an architectural historian at New York City’s historic City Hall and Tweed Courthouse.  She is a member of the American Institute of Architects and the Society of Architectural Historians.

> Grace Gary’s relationship with the National Trust began when, while in graduate school, she was chosen as a National Trust Maritime Intern.  She’s hard to pin down on how many years ago that was, but she admits to having served as a lecturer on more-than fifty Trust tours over a span of more-than thirty years.  She is also the author of two titles in the Trust’s “Information” series and served as director of the Trust’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Office.  She also served as executive director of Preservation Pennsylvania, Longue Vue House and Gardens, Colonial Williamsburg’s Tourism Leadership Program, and Nemours Mansion and Gardens.  While at Nemours she oversaw an $80 million restoration program, which received the highest award from the AIA ever bestowed on a restoration project.  She and fellow National Trust Tours lecturer Dwight Young also co-authored “Nemours: A Portrait of Alfred I. DuPont’s Home,” which was published by Rizzoli.  She is a graduate of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and has a Master’s in architectural history from the University of Virginia, where she had the privilege of living on the Range in one of the original, Thomas Jefferson-designed rooms.

Current Tours

• Great Journey Through Europe Aboard Amadeus Imperial
• Cruising the Great Lakes aboard Le Bellot
• Village Life in Dordogne

Greg Paxton joined Maine Preservation as executive director in 2008. Greg was a Trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He was CEO of The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation from 1981 – 2008, Preservation Administrator for Historic Charleston Foundation from 1977 – 1981 and site manager at Mount Independence in Vermont from 1973-1976.  He is a graduate of Williams College with a MA in historic preservation from the University of Vermont.  He is married to Dr. Lynne Werner and has an eighteen-year-old son Burke.

Tom Moriarity is a nationally recognized preservationist and urban development specialist. Trained as an architect, Tom was one of the founders of the National Trust’s pioneering Main Street Program. As Managing Principal at Retail & Development Strategies LLC, Tom has been involved in major restoration and urban rehabilitation projects across the U.S. and the world. He will bring his expertise on architecture, architectural history, historic preservation and adaptive use that will help each traveler better understand the beauty and significance of the places we will visit.  Tom holds two degrees in Architecture from the University of Texas at Austin.

Current Tours

• Circumnavigation of Iceland: Land of Fire & Ice Aboard Le Bellot
• Ancient Civilizations Adriatic and Aegean Odyssey
• Autumn in Provence & Burgundy Aboard Amadeus Provence
• TransAtlantic Voyage - Aboard Six-Star aboard the All-Suite Silver Shadow

Mary Werner DeNadai, FAIA, is a nationally recognized architect and Trustee Emerita of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Her career spans four decades in the fields of historic preservation and classical architectural design and she has had personal involvement with projects that include the full spectrum of architectural styles, periods and building types. Mary has recently lectured on trips to the Rhine River, Spain, Portugal, Iceland, Peru, Eastern Europe, Cuba, the Canary Islands and Morocco. She has been acknowledged and awarded for her achievements by the American Institute of Architects, as well as by other National, State and Local organizations.

John Meffert, consultant on Heritage Conservation Services, has a long tradition with the National Trust. He has served as the Director for our Southern Office from and was the director of the Preservation Society of Charleston, the oldest nonprofit organization in the United States, responsible for preserving the historic resources of Charleston, S.C. John has delighted many study tour groups with his lectures and insights on preservation, and receives rave reviews as study leader.

Current Tours

• A VOYAGE ALONG THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI RIVER
• Savannah and Jekyll Island with John Meffert
• Ancient Traditions of Japan's Inland Sea Aboard Le Soléal
• Circumnavigation of Iceland: Land of Fire & Ice Aboard Le Bellot
• Cruising the Great Lakes aboard Le Bellot

Dwight Young’s career in historic preservation has spanned more than 30 years.

A native of West Texas, Young earned a Master’s degree in architectural history at the University of Virginia in 1976. The following year, he joined the staff of the National Trust as director of the Southern Regional Office in Charleston, S.C., then served briefly as interim director of the Western Regional Office in San Francisco, and eventually moved to Trust headquarters in Washington, where from 1992 to 2010 he served as senior communications associate, communicating the overall mission of the National Trust through speeches, newspaper and magazine articles and opinion pieces. His extensive knowledge of history and architecture, his experience in historic preservation, his skills as a lecturer and his enthusiasm for travel have made him a popular study leader on many National Trust trips and a frequent speaker at conferences and workshops throughout the United States.

For many years, Young wrote the regular “Back Page” feature in Preservation magazine. In addition, he is the author of Saving America’s Treasures (published in 2001), Dear Mr. President (2005) and Dear First Lady (2008), as well as Road Trips through History (2003), a collection of his “Back Page” essays.

He now makes his home in Charleston, S.C.

Rolf Achilles is an independent art historian, curator of the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows, and adjunct faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A writer and lecturer on various topics related to preserving American artistic heritage, Mr. Achilles is the author of several books on Chicago architecture and commerce.

Giuseppina Lucini was raised in Como, Italy, where she still lives today. Her family has resided  here for generations. Giuseppina earned her B.A.in Classical Literature at Liceo A. Volta in Como,  as well as an M.A. in Medieval History from Università degli Studi in Milan. Her active interest in art  and history as well as her fluency in English, Italian and French complement her open and enthusiastic attitude with travelers. Always a popular study leader, she looks forward to introducing you, through her lectures, to all that the Italian Lake District has to offer.

Current Tours

• Village Life around the Italian Lakes

Christine has worked with the scientific community, lectured on prehistoric art, and shared her knowledge and enthusiasm for the Dordogne region of France with visitors for the past 25 years. Her first visits to the caves of the Dordogne sparked an insatiable passion for the subject of Paleolithic art and she returned to the University of Bordeaux to continue her studies, resulting in a Diploma of Advanced Studies in Anthropology. Recently, Christine completed a book abut the five major case sites in the Dordogne and the evolution of Paleolithic cultures.

Current Tours

• Village Life in Dordogne
• Village Life in Dordogne

Héctor Hoyos is an associate professor of Iberian and Latin American cultures at Stanford. He has also been faculty in residence at Stanford’s Bing Overseas Studies campus in Santiago de Chile on two occasions. His book, Beyond Bolaño: The Global Latin American Novel (Columbia University Press, 2015), examines post-1989 Latin American novels of globalization and their relevance to world literature. He received an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for his work on new materialism in Latin America. During this program, Professor Hoyos will discuss the pivotal role of the Panama Canal in hemispheric politics and literature. A special focus will be the interplay between nature and culture in the region, leading to the riveting, magical realist work of authors such as Gabriel García Marquez and Miguel Ángel Asturias.

He earned his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1973, working with one of Portugal’s greatest writers of this century, Jorge de Sena. His main scholarly interests are the cultural issues of the Age of Discovery and 20th-century vanguard literature, He is co-translator of novels by Oswald de Andrade and by Patricia Galvão, and is currently preparing to publish Galvão’s collected journalism. Work in progress includes studies of the Brazilian avant-garde and Concrete poets, Fernando Pessoa and Portuguese futurism, and Indo-Portuguese culture in South Asia. Professor Jackson travels often to Portugal, Brazil, and India for research on topics related to Portuguese literature and culture. He is also a professional cellist and has played with many orchestras.

Michelle Damian began working as an Assistant Professor at Monmouth College (IL) after a year as a post-doctoral fellow of Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University. She is also on the Board of Directors for the nonprofit Museium of Underwater Archaeology, and lectures on the AIA’s national Lecture Program. At Monmouth, Michelle teaches classes on Japanese and Chinese history, public history, and maritime archaeology.

Alide Cagidemetrio is Professor Emerita at the Università degli Studi di Venezia (Cà Foscari) where she served as dean of Modern Languages and created and directed the Cà Foscari Harvard Summer School. Having taught at Venice, Strathclyde. Harvard, Wellesley, and Udine, she currently teaches literature at NYU Abu Dhabi. Both Alide and Werner are prolific authors and editors; and they are currently at work together on Face to Face with Antiquity, which examines visitors to global sites of antiquity.

James has taught for Yale since 1999, and where he served as Chair of the Department from 2013 to 2018. Professor Hepokoski is a specialist in operatic, symphonic, and chamber music from the 18th to the 20th centuries, with particular expertise in musical style and its political and cultural implications. He is the author or co-author of seven books and dozens of essays on a wide variety of topics, including studies of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Strauss, Sibelius and Debussy, as well as his award-winning book from 2006 Elements of Sonata Theory. He has also given several pre-concert lectures at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. In 2010, he was awarded Yale College’s Sidonie Miwkimin Clauss Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities.

Fred Plotkin is one of the world’s most respected opera experts and author of Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera. And Classical Music 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Classical Music. He was scholar in residence at the 2012 Verbier Festival. Fred has lectured, taught, consulted and held managerial or artistic roles at some of the top opera companies, including La Scala (as a Fulbright Scholar) and the Metropolitan Opera. He has appeared often on WFMT, NPR, the BBC and the national radio networks of Italy, France, Ireland, Finland and Canada.

John R. Stomberg is the Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. He served as the Director of the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum and the Joseph Allen Skinner Museum, and held leadership positions at the Williams College Museum of Art and the Boston University Art Gallery. He holds a B.A. from Georgetown University and both an M.A. and Ph.D. from Boston University—all in art history. Moving between photography, prints, paintings, sculpture, media
art, and installation work, his exhibitions have been conceived to broaden our understanding of how art operates in, and often shapes, society. He publishes on modern and contemporary art and issues directly related to museums, education, and academia. Dr. Stomberg is excited to have the opportunity to lecture on Aboriginal art and contemporary Australian art, two areas of growing specialization for Dartmouth’s Hood Museum, which recently acquired new collections in these areas.

Andrew Berry has a degree in zoology from Oxford University and a PhD in evolutionary genetics from Princeton University. He was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and is currently a lecturer on Organismic & Evolutionary Biology at Harvard. Combining the techniques of field biology with those of molecular
biology, Dr. Berry’s work has been a search for evidence at the DNA level of Darwinian natural selection. He has published on topics as diverse as giant rats in New Guinea, mice on Atlantic islands, aphids from the Far East, and the humble fruit fly. He has given lectures on evolutionary topics to popular audiences all over the world—from Ankara to the Antarctic. As an educator and popularizer, he seeks to demystify the most important and most misinterpreted of all biological ideas, evolution.

He has carried out both primatological and paleontological fieldwork in countries as diverse as Madagascar, Vietnam, Suriname, Yemen, and Mauritius. Trained in archaeology and anthropology
at the University of Cambridge, and in geology and vertebrate paleontology at Yale University, Ian has
concentrated his research since the 1960s in three main areas: the analysis of the human fossil record
and its integration with evolutionary theory, the origin of human cognition, and the study of the ecology
and systematics of the lemurs of Madagascar.

New Zealand writer and adventurer who has published nearly forty books on geography, biography, history,
and the natural environment, the most recent being The Invading Sea. A Dunedin city councilor, Neville has
accompanied ship-based tours of mainland New Zealand and the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands for the
past 15 years as a lecturer and guide. He also chairs the trust board for Dunedin’s Orokonui Ecosanctuary, an
ecological island wildlife reserve. A very popular lecturer, Neville infuses travelers with his passion for and
encyclopedic knowledge of New Zealand’s natural wonders.

Has served Harvard in a variety of roles since 1962. Since 1995 he has been a Lecturer and Associate in the Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences. He taught popular courses in physical and environmental geology, and acted as mentor to many undergraduates. Mark’s research has included field-based projects in New England, California and the Swiss Alps, all focusing on details of the origin of ancient ocean basins and their associated mountain belts. More recently he has studied the interactions between human activities and the inexorable process of climate change. In addition to these strictly scientific interests, Mark has a deep interest in history, including the exploration of remote regions of the world. On these trips, Mark lectures on the natural history of the regions being visited, as well as painting a broader picture of human interaction with its environment, now and in the past.

A specialist in Italian Renaissance art with a particular passion for narrative fresco programs, her 30-year teaching career has given her the opportunity to teach a broad range of courses, which include Classical, Medieval, Renaissance (Italian and Northern), and Baroque art and architecture. Now an Independent Scholar, she serves on the faculty of the Beverley Street Studio School in Staunton. An avid gardener and garden lover, she is a certified Master Gardener and a member of the Garden Club of Virginia and the Garden Club of America.

Linda was on the NTHP National Main Street program’s management team working with over 200 communities.  As the director for Exchange Programs for the Countryside Institute she provided oversight for communities in 3 counties to implement sustainable environmental and economic programs. Her time as the Board Chair and Executive Director of Historic Congressional Cemetery saw the property go from being listed on the NT’s 11 Most Endangered to being listed as a National Landmark with a $4M endowment. Most recently she served as the CEO for Cultural Tourism for Washington, DC promoting the embassies, monuments, arts and neighborhoods as an integral part of the city’s economic development plan.  Her background in historic preservation, cultural tourism and community engagement will help each traveler better understand the flavor and significance of our stops along the way.

Current Tours

• Island Life Ancient Greece & Turkey - Aboard Le Bougainville

She is a specialist in the luxury arts of the Middle Ages with a particular focus on travel, trade, and cultural exchange among patrons and artists of the period. An alumna of Smith College and the University of Michigan, she organized the exhibition Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages in 2009 and was guest speaker at the Met’s first TEDTalks conference in 2015. She has been a visiting Museum Scholar at the Getty Research Institute, and has taught at the University of Sussex, the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU, and the Graduate Center at CUNY.

Son of Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1953, is delighted to be joining the lecture staff of our New Zealand program. In addition to being the first second-generation to climb Mt. Everest, Peter has climbed the Seven Summits (the highest mountain on each of the seven continents) and has been on over 40 mountaineering expeditions around the world. Peter is active with several Himalayan foundations that fund capital projects in the Himalayan region of Nepal. He actively supports outdoor youth leadership programs and New Zealand conservation efforts, including protecting the kea, the world’s only mountain parrot.

Dr. Michael Hoff, Hixson-Lied Distinguished Professor of Art History at the University of Nebraska and a member of the Archaeological Institute of America’s (AIA) Board of Trustees, is a classical archaeologist who
specializes in the Roman period in Greece and Asia Minor. He has wide excavation experience in Greece and Turkey, including Athens, Corinth, Nemea, Crete, and for nearly 25 years he has been engaged in archaeological research in the region of Rough Cilicia in southern Turkey. Since 2005 Professor Hoff has directed the Antiochia ad Cragum excavations in Rough Cilicia. In addition to many publications, Professor Hoff has participated for over 20 years in the AIA’s national lecture program and has directed many AIA and university sponsored study tours to Greece and Turkey.

John is an alumnus of UC Berkeley ’82 in Political Science and Columbia University (M.A., 1991) in International Affairs. John served over 30 years of active service in uniform and is currently an instructor of Security Cooperation at the Joint Special Operations University in Tampa. In the Army, John spent more than 20 years in the Infantry in assignments in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East and served his last 10 years as a Foreign Area Officer in the Middle East and North Africa.

Mr. Bowe graduated from University College, Dublin, with a degree in architecture. He has published nine books on the history of gardens and is a consultant on the restoration of historic gardens, including the gardens of Sutton Place, once the English home of J. Paul Getty. His most recent publication, Gardens and Plants of the Getty Villa, explores the design, planting, and uses of the ancient Roman garden and describes how J. Paul Getty realized his vision to create such a garden in California. A sought-after historian and lecturer in both the United States and Europe, Mr. Bowe will present captivating lectures and lively on-site talks. He has accompanied many previous National Trust garden tours.

Gordon Turnbull, PhD graduated with first class Honors from the Australian National University in Canberra,
taught at the University of Newcastle (New South Wales), then joined Yale as a Fulbright scholar to pursue his doctorate in English Literature. In 1997 he assumed the directorship of the Boswell project, one of Yale’s greatest scholarly enterprises. A lively and witty lecturer and seminar leader, Mr. Turnbull also taught in the Yale-in-London program, and has led numerous trips around the world.

Neil Jackson is an architect and architectural historian and currently the President of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. He is the Charles Reilly Professor of Architecture at the University of Liverpool in London as well as being a Professorial Research Associate and a member of the Japan Research Centre at SOAS, University of London.

Craig A. Reynolds is an art historian specializing in the Enlightenment and Early American Republic (1700 – 1850), more specifically the design and architectural work of Thomas Jefferson and his followers. Craig is presently Curator of the Virginia State Capitol, first designed by Jefferson in 1785, as well as Curator of Capitol Square, a historically significant landscape and outdoor public sculpture garden.

Few names over the past twenty-plus years have been as synonymous with the National Trust for Historic Preservation as David J. Brown. David served as EVP and the organization’s founding Chief Preservation Officer, where he led the Trust’s advocacy, educational, field work, research, and historic sites programs. A national leader, speaker, and author with a four-decade record of achievement in saving historic places and supporting thriving communities, David is the founder of Bearden Brown LLC, which works to build nonprofit leadership and grow organizational impact. An affiliate fellow at the American Academy in Rome and a founding board member of the International National Trusts Organisation, David brings an international perspective to his discussions of preservation, history, and architecture.

Current Tours

• Antiquities of the Red Sea & Aegean Seas including Suez Canal
• Alaska's Glaciers and the Inside Passage

David Vater is a Pittsburgh native and his ancestors have lived in the region since the 1830s. He is president of his own architectural firm and has served on the Board of Directors of the AIA Pittsburgh’s Foundation for Architecture, the Friends of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, the Society for the Preservation of the Duquesne Heights Incline, and Chatham Village Homes, Inc.

Dr. Evans has curated the award–winning exhibitions The Glory of Byzantium (843-1261) in 1997, Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557) in 2004, Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition in 2012, and most recently Armenia! in 2018. The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Apollo Magazine and others have praised the exhibitions as among the most important cultural events of their years.

Professor of Zoology, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Director, Program in Environmental Studies at Princeton University. His research focuses on decision-making in animals. He studies how an individual’s foraging, mating and social behavior are influenced by its phenotype, by ecological circumstances, and by the actions of other individuals in the population. Combining theory with experiments he searches for general principles, or ‘rules’, that underlie complex patterns of behavior. On this journey, Professor Rubenstein will discuss his recent findings on the social behavior and ecology of lemurs and other African mammals, especially in relation to human-wildlife conflict and how new technologies are changing the face of African conservation.

Charles Chamberlain received his PhD in U.S. History from Tulane University and worked for ten years as the Museum Historian at the Louisiana State Museum. His book Victory at Home: Race and Manpower in the American South during World War II (University of Georgia Press) was published in 2003, and he has written numerous articles on jazz history, Louisiana history, and American culture. Since 2014, Dr. Chamberlain has served as professor of history at the University of New Orleans, concentrating on graduate level Public History and Louisiana studies.

Early in Don’s career he was a U.S. Coast Guard Deck Officer both in the North Atlantic and along the coast of Vietnam, and also a Maritime Public Relations Officer. He is a licensed Captain and has chartered yachts in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Northwest. As Guest Speaker, Don begins each Cruise with an overview of the area geography and the basics of navigation. Then he supplements Shore excursions with his localized “Nautical Adventure Series” which he has presented at Universities and Maritime Museums. During each Cruise, he also creates a photo slideshow of the Guests enjoying their Itinerary, for review during their wrap-up Session.

Leila Magarò was born in Florence and educated in England. On her return to Italy, she continued her studies in a wide range of subjects, including history, philosophy and history of art. She started to work as a tour leader and guide in her early twenties and has since traveled extensively, while at the same time pursuing a career in medicine. Her passion for architecture and the arts, focusing in particular on the Renaissance period and Italian history of art, has led her to attend several university courses and to give lectures in this field. Leila lives in Florence, but continues to travel for both pleasure and work, led by her love of art. Leila is a voracious reader of both fiction and nonfiction. She enjoys classical and jazz music, the theater and ballet, and she is an expert in both Italian and French cooking.