2008 Tanzania Expedition Leaders, left to right: Megan Hughes, Mike Kautz, Hope Thornton
Wildlife & Conservation
Hope Thornton. Saint Lawrence University, B.A.; School for International Training, M.A. candidate. Hope majored in Anthropology at Saint Lawrence, where as an Outdoor Program Guide she led and organized trips in the Adirondack Mountains. She spent her junior year in Kenya, where she lived with a farming community in Kisii, herded goats and cattle with the Samburu, and studied trade beads on the Spice Route in Mombasa. Hope spent thirteen months working on a permaculture demonstration plot near Lilongwe, Malawi, where she organized community outreach programs. As a consultant for Children in the Wilderness/Wilderness Safaris, she worked in Malawi’s Liwonde National Park on issues of wildlife conservation and sustainable agriculture. She recently completed her Master’s in Sustainable Development and International Education at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, where she also worked on a sheep dairy farm. Hope loves running and reading, and is passionate about all forms of snow sports, which she finds difficult to pursue in Africa. She led Putney Student Travel community service programs in Tanzania for four summers and spent the summer of 2007 in Malawi, where she led Putney’s Global Awareness in Action program. She is proficient in both Kiswahili and Chichewa.
Photography
Mike Kautz. Middlebury College, B.A.; University of Montana, M.F.A. candidate. Mike majored in English and Environmental Studies at Middlebury, where he spent a semester at Lund University in Sweden and a winter term in the Dominican Republic on a traveling writing workshop with the author Julia Alvarez. After graduating he completed a semester program in documentary photography at the Salt Institute in Portland, Maine, where his subjects included moose hunters, French-Canadian musicians, and volunteer firefighters. Mike took on a photojournalism internship at the Salt Lake Tribune, spent three summers working as a publications photographer for Overland Adventures, LLC, in England, France, Switzerland, the Western U.S., and Alaska, and worked as an instructor at a National Geographic Photo Camp in Maine. He served as huts manager for the Appalachian Mountain Club in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, where he oversaw one hundred seasonal employees and managed the AMC’s high mountain Search and Rescue operations. Mike is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Nonfiction Writing at the University of Montana. Some of his photography can be viewed on-line at www.quistphoto.com.
Megan Hughes. Middlebury College, B.A. Megan majored in Art at Middlebury with a special focus in Travel Photography. She was a photographer for the Middlebury Campus newspaper and studied abroad at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, and at the Probigua Spanish School in La Antigua, Guatemala. Megan has traveled widely in North and South America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. She is an accomplished alpine ski racer who was the captain of the Middlebury College Ski Team and a member of the U.S. Alpine Ski Team from 1999 – 2004. Her racing career has taken her around the world, garnering her such distinctions as 2005 Division I Slalom Champion, 2005-2006 NCAA All-America, 2006 VARA Skier of the Year, 2006 NESCAC Ski Racing Overall Champion, and 2007 World University Ski Team in Torino, Italy. Megan was a color commentator for Fox College Sports in Innsbruck, Austria. She coached young skiers with the Kandahar Racing Team in Les Deux Alps, France, and the Scottish National Ski Team in Meribel, France. In addition to photography, coaching, and skiing Megan enjoys art, cycling, jewelry-making, dancing, and cooking. Her solo photo exhibition, “Overlap,” recently opened at the Johnson Art Center.
