Susan Adie - An environmentalist, educator and leader of several hundred expeditions to the Antarctic and Arctic (including 7 to the North Pole), Susan Adie has played a substantial role in managing the upsurge of tourism to the polar regions.  As Chair of the Field Operations Committee of the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators, she developed, both for IAATO and the Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators, guidelines for safe and responsible polar tourism.  She also served for ten years as Expedition Operations Manager and Expedition Leader aboard the 130-passenger polar vessel, the G Expedition.  Adie Cove on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula is named in her honor.  She is President of the American Polar Society.

Douglas W. Wamsley - Doug is a retired attorney by profession, and is an independent researcher and scholar who has written and lectured extensively on the history of nineteenth-century Arctic exploration. Among other subjects, his publications examine individual contributions to our knowledge and perceptions of the far northern regions. He is the author of the biography, Polar Hayes, The Life and Contributions of Isaac Israel Hayes, M.D., published by the American Philosophical Society, shortlisted for the 2010 William Mills Prize for non-fiction books sponsored by the Polar Libraries Colloquy. His latest books, Big Wolf, the Adventurous Life of Lieutenant Frederick G. Schwatka, U.S. Third Cavalry, and Dancing Chief, the Tragic Life of Lieutenant Frederick F. Kislingbury, examine the lives of these two intrepid soldier-explorers. Both are published by the American History Press.

Russell Potter - Internationally known for his books and lectures about the lost Franklin Arctic expedition of 1845, Russell Potter has been researching the history of the expedition and those who searched for it for more than 25 years. Among his books are Arctic Spectacles: The Frozen North in Visual Culture (2007), Finding Franklin: The Untold Story of a 165-Year Search (2016), and (as editor) May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth: Letters of the Lost Franklin Arctic Expedition (2022). He is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, a member of the Arctic Institute of North America, and teaches at Rhode Island College in Providence, Rhode Island (USA).

William Muntean - Bill is a nonresident senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He was a career Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Department of State from January 2001 to September 2023. His most recent assignment was as senior adviser for Antarctica, overseeing a range of political, economic, environmental, and scientific activities related to Antarctica from August 2018 to July 2023. In this position, he led the 2020 U.S. inspection of three Ross Sea stations, served as head of the U.S. delegation to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in 2022 (Berlin) and 2023 (Helsinki), and provided significant input into current U.S. government policy toward Antarctica (released in 2024). He regularly writes, lectures, and consults on Antarctic geopolitical topics and is a member of the board of the American Polar Society. His non-Antarctic diplomatic assignments included Luanda, Angola; London, United Kingdom; Panama City, Panama; Moscow, Russia; Managua, Nicaragua; and Washington, D.C. He received a BA in history from Washington University in 1994 and an MA in international affairs from George Washington University in 1997.

Sheldon Bart - The author of Race to the Top of the World: Richard Byrd and the First Flight to the North Pole, Sheldon Bart led expeditions conducting geological and geographical field research on Baffin Island in the Canadian Eastern Arctic and King George Island off the Antarctic Peninsula.  He has lectured at the National Archives, the Explorers Club, the Geographical Society of Philadelphia, the Adventurers Club of Los Angeles, the Virginia Historical Society, the Massachusetts History Society, and the Elisha Kent Kane Historical Society. 

Charles O. Cowing – Chas Cowing is Chairman of the Elisha Kent Kane Historical Society and Curator of the Kane-Peary-Byrd Room.  His biography of Elisha Kent Kane was published in The Encyclopedia of the Arctic (Nuttall, 2005). He has spoken on Polar Exploration before the Explorers’ Club, the American Polar Society and the Polar Libraries Colloquy at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center at Ohio State. In the year 2000 he co-founded Access Talent, a boutique voice-over talent agency in New York City. Chas is a member of the APS, the Glacier Society and Kane Lodge #454. To Chas, every year is Polar History Year!