Meet our Members

Currently the Chapter Chair for the Southern California chapter of the Explorers Club, he is best known for his Lost City of the Monkey God Expeditions that culminated in a successful 21 year quest. The project advanced the use of airborne lidar as tool of discovery in unknown and extremely thick jungle while uncovering ancient ruins and a previously unknown past culture.  It has been highlighted in all forms of media throughout the world and also jumpstarted a rainforest conservation movement in Honduras.

His latest project involves researching pre-Columbian maritime explorations of the Americas. There seems to be substantial evidence that people have been crossing the oceans for thousands of years and Columbus was the last in a very long line of predecessors!

Earlier in life he was Director of an Outdoor and Environmental Education program for a K-12 private school, a paleoclimate researcher, petroleum engineer, cinematographer, editor, and an owner of an international production services /equipment business. Always an avid and insatiably curious explorer since youth, he has been fortunate to travel extensively and have many uncommon adventures in both his professional and private life.  Steve has been a lifelong skier, sailor, cyclist, and hiker.

Foreign Policy Magazine Leading Global Thinker -2013

Emmy -1991

Explorers Club Citation of Merit 2021

Executive Director and Principal Investigator - Blueprint Earth, Adjunct Professor of Geosciences - Pasadena City College

Jess Phoenix is a volcanologist, an extreme explorer, host of the upcoming Discovery Channel series Hunting Atlantis and former candidate for United States Congress. Her work has taken her to six continents, where she has organized and led over 25 scientific research expeditions. She has been chased by narco-traffickers in Mexico, dodged armed thieves in remote Peru, raced horses across Mongolia, worked on the world’s largest volcano in Hawaii, piloted the Jason2 submersible on an undersea volcano, and rappelled into the 3rd largest sinkhole on Earth. Jess is a Fellow in The Explorers Club and the Royal Geographical Society, a frequent contributor for CNN and the BBC, and the author of Ms. Adventure: My Wild Explorations in Science, Lava, and Life from Timber Press.

volcanojess.com

blueprintearth.org

Instagram: @volcano.jess

Emmy-winning TV Producer, Travel and Wellbeing Entrepreneur, Writer. Member of the Directors Guild of America, Producers Guild of America. Happiness Institute, Advisor (Oxford.) Transformational Travel Council, Advisor + Herald. Seven-continent marathon walker + fundraiser. 

https://thesojournexperience.org

https://thesojournexperience.org/8-good-things/

Instagram: @mariabaltazzi

Department of Family Medicine, Residency Training Program

Harbor-UCLA Medical Center

Health Sciences Asst. Clinical Professor

UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine

Lomita Family Medicine Clinic 

University of Southern California, 1975 Managing Member of his commercial real estate development firm for the past 45 years. 

David has held leadership positions on the boards of a university, hospital, World Affairs Council, Boys and Girls Club and a teenage alcohol and drug prevention initiative.

“The Explorers Club has enhanced my life enormously and has given me a greater sense of the world around us. Have self organized expeditions to indigenous peoples in South America, Africa, south Asia and Oceana such as the Yanomami, Matses, Dogon, Tuareg, Rohingya and mountain Kwaio. Climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro as a fundraiser to build a new hospital.

Attended the New Horizons flyby of Arrokoth on December 31, 2018 at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab developed by fellow Explorers Club member Alan Stern.

These expeditions have given me an insight of the fragility of Earth and its inhabitants which I otherwise would not have known and have a deep appreciation of.”

(Graduated from her undergraduate program at the University of San Diego in May, and will hopefully continue on to a PhD program next year.)

“Since I can remember, I have been amazed and curious about the ocean and its inhabitants, especially when it pertains to coral reef ecosystems. With the lust for travel installed in me at a young age, I cannot help but constantly plan my next trip to some corner of the world I have yet to explore (my bucket list is quite extensive). I took a gap year before starting my undergraduate program, in which I solo traveled to five different continents, working, volunteering, and enjoying my time along the way.

At my university, I have conducted 

working with metal concentrations in estuarine environments and spatiotemporal variability of foraminifera off the San Diego coast. I have also lead as a shipboard scientist and student leader on multiple research cruises conducting geological data collection of the seafloor. Recently graduated, I look forward to my next chapter in life before continuing my education at a PhD program.”

Instagram: @bibirenessen