Explorers Club Annual Dinner 2026
Felix’s rapid-fire portrait studio (a complete portrait every 110 seconds for 6 ½ hours), completes its 11th year. Shooting backstage at the gala, the project focuses on the awardees and who’s who of the Explorers Club as represented in the attendees at the famed Explorers Club Annual Dinner.
The rapid posing and shooting style gets people comfortable quickly, while also capturing the essence of the moment, all without over-complicating things.
Felix is supported by a team of 16, necessary to collect everyone’s information, help with posing groups, creative direction and production. It takes a village!
Joe Eagle Tail Feathers (Iitsooahp’potah, which translates into Battles in Water) is a Kainai/Blackfoot Knowledge Keeper and Ceremonialist. Joe is a Sun Dancer and Pipe Carrier and holds ceremonies on his land on the Blood Tribe Reserve in southern Alberta. The Blackfoot Confederacy lands straddle southern Alberta and northern Montana. Joe is a leader in his community and is well loved and respected as one with strong medicine caring for all.
Documentary Filmmaker Kate Broug. Kate’s self-designed dress made from an actual WWII parachute to help commemorate her recent film, The Missing Airmen of WWII.
Justin Fornal as The Oracle of Ozymandias; a spirit of lost civilizations and ancient esoteric knowledge that we will never rediscover. The cloak is a Kazakhstani chapan, the neck piece is the capital from an lonic column, the mask is a molted horseshoe crab shell, and the crown is a repurposed tin finial, all brush painted and patinated. The architectural salvage elements put forth this visage as a walking ghost of destroyed and plundered kingdoms. The horseshoe crab (as a living fossil) remains the timeless watcher and witness to the cyclical rise and fall of humankind. Ozymandias, is a nod to the famed sonnet by Percy Shelly which describes a desert traveller who comes upon the crumbling ruins of an ancient statue. The statues inscription "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!", displays that all power is temporary and the sands of time will eventually swallow even the most powerful rulers and nations.
The Awardees*: (l-r) Rebecca Hui, Alexandra Climent, and Elodie Freymann, Ph.D. — The New Explorer Award; SPHEREx Mission Team (Jamie Bock, John Wisniewski) — The Sylvia A. Earle Award for Exploration Excellence; James Delgado, Ph.D. — The William Beebe Award for Underwater Exploration; Kristine McDivitt Tompkins — The Explorers Club Medal; Janet Walsh — The Edward C. Sweeney Medal for Service to the Club; Morad Tahbaz — The President's Award for Courage in Exploration; *see full description at bottom of the gallery
Former Disney imagineer Joe Rohde is the Experience Architect for Virgin Galactic and one of the spearheads of the Explorers Club's annual EC50 initiative, highlighting 50 explorers and scientists that are changing the world.
Mark Fowler, Chair of the Explorers Club Wildlife Committee, with Carolyn Rinaldi and Jim Knox from the Beardsley Zoo, posing with a Boa Constrictor and Barred Owls
Conservationist Kris Tompkins, president and co-founder of Tompkins Conservation, and first CEO of Patagonia, Inc. This year's recipient of the Explorers Club Medal (Exploration's Highest Honor) for her work in wilderness protection and biodiversity restoration across the globe.
Famed Marine Biologist, ‘Her Deepness’ Sylvia Earle. Her accolades and impact on ocean conservation are too numerous to sum up in a photo caption.
Anthropologist and Writer Wade Davis
Master of Ceremonies, Science communicator extraordinaire, Cleo Abram
Television's Josh Gates
Experience Architect for Virgin Galactic and former Disney imagineer, Joe Rohde
Laurie Marker and Bruce Brewer, the Director and General manager (respectively) of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which, through their projects in Namibia, Somalialand and around the globe is having extraordinary impact in the preservation of the Cheetah.
outgoing President of the Explorers Club, Richard Wiese, with new president Barbara Doran
Natalie Cash, Executive Producer at the Wildlife Conservation Society, one of the most impactful science communicators working today.
Archeologist Gino Caspari and Vice President for Research and Education at The Explorers Club Trevor Wallace
Historian/Explorer Erick Cedeño, the 'Bicycle Nomad' with limited edition BROMPTON x BREMONT x CHEANEY bike, outfitted with handcrafted Carradice bike bags.
Botanist Sefra Alexandra, also known as 'the seed huntress'
'The Introverted Jellyfish' Leiti Hsu
Environmental philosopher, writer, and content creator Blair Carlyle
Young member of the club, Allie Davidge, recently back from diving in the Antarctic circle in full drysuit.
Breezy Grenier, holding the Blue Robotics "BlueROV2" - a remotely operated underwater vehicle she use for boat hull and prop inspections, underwater surveying, search operations, and real-time marine life observation and exploration.
Planetary scientist Nina Lanza. Her impactful work at Los Alamos National Laboratory on both the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers continued to push the envelope of exploration in our solar system.
(l-r) Simon Wong, Meghan Buchanan, Steve Pigott, Alyssa Larish, Lucy Rivers Bulkeley, Andrew LaManna, Kelsey Overby Expedition team undertook a 382 km cross-country ski expedition from Cambridge Bay to Gjoa Haven collecting microplastic samples in the Arctic, aimed at understanding pollution impacts on remote environments and Indigenous communities.
Creator/Explorer L. Renee Blount
one of the three 2026 ‘Young Explorer’ awardees: Scientist and storyteller Elodie Freymann Ph.D.
*The 2026 Explorers Club Annual Dinner Awardees:
Rebecca Hui - The New Explorer Award - From Rainforests to the Runway: Documenting Indigenous Bioeconomic Knowledge for Global Cultural Economies
Alexandra Climent ‘The New Explorer Award’ - Restoring the Corridor of the Americas: The Darién Gap
Elodie Freymann, Ph.D. - The New Explorer Award - Discovering nature’s medicine cabinet through anthropology and primatology
SPHEREx Mission Team - The Sylvia A. Earle Award for Exploration Excellence - Groundbreaking contributions to astrophysical exploration — Jamie Bock, Principal Investigator — John Wisniewski, Program Scientist — Olivier Doré, Project Scientist (not pictured)
James Delgado, Ph.D. - The William Beebe Award for Underwater Exploration - a lifetime of achievements in underwater discovery, deep-sea exploration, and preserving our seafaring heritage
Kristine McDivitt Tompkins - The Explorers Club Medal - (Exploration’s Highest Honor) Wilderness protection & biodiversity restoration across the globe
Janet Walsh - The Edward C. Sweeney Medal for Service to the Club - impactful work in Governance & Ethics
Morad Tahbaz - The President's Award for Courage in Exploration - Wildlife conservation in Iran in his work as co-founder of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation
Not pictured: Paul Tudor Jones – President’s Award for Conservation in Exploration – catalyzing economic opportunity while strengthening environmental conservation
With special thanks to The Explorers Club, Oliphant Studio Backdrops, Elinchrom, Kupo Grip USA, The Glasshouse, Bill & Sharyn Runyon, Kevin Murphy, Barbara Doran, Richard Wiese, Richard Garriott and everyone else that helped make this possible
A huge thank you to my spectacular team (left to right):
Lorenzo Pace, Emily Teague, Bri Allege, Allison Hanes, Brandi Nicole, Brian von Glahn, Anna Andersen, Tiffany Chapman, Magnus Karlsson, Bella Kotak, Nilu Amin, Felix Kunze, Sequoyah Wildwyn-Dechter, Keoni Chun, Beck Wolfinger, DonnaMaria Jones, Pratik Naik, Noelle Tubbs & Tushar Khandelwal (not pictured)
