Trip Leaders
Heading up each program is a team of talented, dynamic trip leaders who have extensive experience in the field — and love working with high school students. With no more than nine students to every leader, we'll have the freedom to break into teams to pursue our On Assignment and community service projects. Here are a few of our outstanding trip leaders who may accompany you on a National Geographic Student Expedition.
Erika Brant
University of California, Los Angeles, B.A.; University of Virginia, M.A.; Ph.D. candidate.
Erika is a doctoral student in Anthropological Archaeology. She has conducted several years of field research throughout the Andean region focused on topics such as warfare, ritual, and social and economic responses to climate change. Her current research focuses on the relationship between ancestor veneration and political authority among the pre-Inca cultures of the Lake Titicaca Basin, Peru. Erika enjoys hiking, kayaking, and running on the beach.
Nick Fitzhugh
Brown University, B.A.
Nick is a Washington, D.C.-based photographer and filmmaker. At Brown he founded Glimpse, a multimedia storytelling platform for young people to share stories about cultural experiences abroad. Glimpse was acquired by National Geographic in 2008. Nick launched redfitz productions in 2010 and has since produced several films including "Soccer City," about soccer in South Africa during the 2010 World Cup; and "Starboard Light," about a family home on Cape Cod.
Elie Gardner
University of Missouri, B.J.
Elie is an award-winning photojournalist and educator based in Lima, Peru. She has recently covered the Peruvian presidential elections and the liberation of five Amazonian manatees back into the wild, and reported for Nature magazine on a variety of topics. Before moving to Lima, she worked as a photographer and photo editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Patrick McLaughlin
St. Lawrence University, B.S.; Drexel University, Ph.D. candidate.
Patrick developed a passion for field research and travel as a biology and environmental studies major, and was awarded a university fellowship in field biology. He has worked as a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Vermont, a naturalist guide in Yellowstone, and a director of the environmental education program for the Grand Teton Lodge Company. His current research focuses on amphibian ecology and biodiversity conservation in central Africa.
Federico Pardo
Universidad de los Andes, B.S.c.; Montana State University, MFA.
Born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, Federico’s film work has taken him from Jackson Hole, WY, to Colombia, where he shot and directed a documentary on critically endangered cotton-top tamarins. He has worked as a cameraman for National Geographic Television in the Ecuadorian Amazon and as the science media producer for The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Federico is also an advanced open-water diver
Erika Skogg
Montana State University, B.A.
Erika is a photographer and filmmaker based in Bogota, Colombia. Her adventure-guiding experience started on the white waters of Colorado as a river guide, and over the winters as a ski instructor at Moonlight Basin, Montana. Sponsored by Canon, Erika has led hundreds of digital photography workshops through many of America’s iconic National Parks, including Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and Acadia.
Brian Wright
Duke University, B.A.; Western New Mexico University, M.A.T.
Brian received the LaBoskey Award for achievement in environmental sciences at Duke. An accomplished rock climber, he lived with a nomadic family in the Gobi desert of Mongolia, spent nearly a year in the Philippines, and spent three years with Teach for America at a high school on the Zuni Indian reservation in New Mexico. He currently teaches at the United World College in Costa Rica.
