Kara Weller

Kara has always had two major passions—travel and biology of the natural world. Growing up in the woods of central Alaska her interest in nature was stimulated by visits of bears and moose to the neighborhood and by sightings of the aurora borealis overhead.

With Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in wildlife biology from Colorado State University, Kara’s research experiences range from studying whales in the Bering Sea, eiders on the Arctic coast, river otters in central Europe, and raptors in central Alaska, to mouflon sheep in Eastern Europe. She worked for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as well as the National Park Service, and some private organizations such as the Alaska Bird Observatory.

For the last 15 years her focus has been on the nature travel industry, and she has become an expert ecologist in the polar regions. Her work has taken her as an expedition leader and lecturer on board passenger ships to the Arctic, Alaska, British Columbia, eastern Russia, Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic, South America, the South Pacific, Antarctica, and even the North Pole. Since her first trip to Antarctica in 1993 she has been hooked on this great white continent. She has completed over 100 trips to the Antarctic, which is still her first love and favorite place on Earth.