The VolcanoDiscovery Team

The Volcano Discovery Team

The VOLCANO DISCOVERY team is based in Europe, Indonesia and Hawaii. Members of the scientific community with active membership in geological associations, such as the IAVCEI (International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior ), GSA (Geological Society of America) and EGU (European Geophysical Society), we work closely with international scientists from volcanological institutes and observatories all over the world.
Our services have been used by groups and individuals as well as media such as National Geographic, Discovery Channel, the BBC, CNN and Geo. As knowledgeable professionals, we can offer you safe, exciting tours in volcanic environments.

Tom Pfeiffer

German volcanologist Dr. Tom Pfeiffer, founder and general manager of VOLCANO DISCOVERY, is passionate about volcanoes ever since he first saw an eruption on Mt. Etna. He is an expert on Santorini and has worked at the volcano observatories of Hawaii and Vesuvius volcano. He organizes and guides tours in Europe and East Africa, as well sometimes elsewhere (Indonesia, Hawaii, Vanuatu, Guatemala).

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Tobias Schorr

Co-founder of VOLCANO DISCOVERY, German professional photographer Tobias Schorr, a true lover of Greece, is an enthousiastic geology expert since his early childhood. Tobias has lived for more than 15 years on Methana in Greece, participated in many scientific and tourism-developing projects such as the geologic and topographic mapping of the Methana peninsula, or the Geowarn project on Nisyros. Better than almost anyone else, he not only knows the geology of the Greek volcanic areas (Methana, Milos, Santorini, Nisyros and Lesbos), but also their rich flora, fauna, geography, as well as history, archeology, culture and people.

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Yashmin Chebli

French volcanologist Yashmin Chebli is convincing when he says that has always been fascinated by the raw power and the beautiy of our planet and the univers. This passion led him to study volcanoes at university and brought him to Peru and Italy. To share his passion and his skill in organizing and communicating allowed him to start a parallel career as expedition organizer to volcanoes on Hawaii, Indonesia, Vanuatu and elswhere. He is 15 years of experience with accompanying groups and individuals, exploring new adventurous destinations all over the world. His talent and enthousiasm in what he's doing is second to none - we are proud to welcome him in our team!
Yashmin is largely in charge of our new French section and creating tours aimed towards French-speaking clients.

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Evelyne Pradal

Dr. Evelyne Pradal is a trained geologist and volcanologist with a passion of showing and teaching her subject to the general public. Born in Aurillac, in the heart of the Auvergne, Central Europe's youngest volcanic field, she studied in the renowned Center of Earth Science of the university of Clermont-Ferrand, one of France's leading research institutes in the field of volcanology.
Her research led her to study volcanoes in Mexico, the Caribbean, Ethiopia and other areas.
After completing her doctorate degee in 1990 she went on to work as consultant and teacher in earth sciences, and she has been organizing expeditions and study trips to volcanoes in Italy, France, the Caribbean, Ethiopia and Tanzania designed to share knowledge and the fascination of her subject, the beauty of our living earth, to the general public. She also co-authored the book "Au coeur des volcans" (2004, Ed. Fleurus - Geo Ados). Evelyne with her charming smile joined our team in 2010 and guides trips to Ethiopia, the Caribbean, and a new study trip in the Auvergne, her homeland.

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Marco Fulle

Dr. Marco Fulle, Italian astronomer and volcano expert is considered world-wide as among the elite of volcano photographers. His specialty is Mt. Etna and with his photographs he is co-author of the popular educative website Stromboli Online - www.stromboli.net. He and Tom, as a proven team and close friends, lived many volcano adventures together. Marco guides some of the volcano tours in Italy, in particular to Etna volcano - in fact, the volcano he loves most and calls his "second home".

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Thierry Basset

Swiss geologist Dr. Thierry Basset (1963) has early on specialized in volcanology and conducted his research on Etna volcano in Sicily and on the volcanoes in Guatemala. After his university degrees he embarked to fulfill a life-long dream, and travelled two years from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego...
This extraordinary trip changed his life. Back in Geneva, he decided to combine his passion of travelling & meeting people with the passion for volcanoes. Thierry then started to offer geologic and volcanologic excursions and courses for audiences among the grand public. His tours offers include the spectacular geology of Guatemala, Iceland, Sicily, France (Massif Central and Normandie), Greece (Santorin & Milos). Thierry has been cooperating with VolcanoDiscovery since 2005. Look at his website: www.thierrybasset.ch.

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Ulla Lohmann

Ulla Lohmann (1977) is an internationally recognized adventurer, team organizer, documentary filmmaker and photojournalist with Australian university degrees in Natural Resource Management and journalism. Her latest work includes the documentaries "Expedition Papua New Guinea" (BBC NHU, Discovery Channel, NDR, in production), "Into the unknown" (Darlow Smithson for Discovery Channel), "Wild Spaces" (National Geographic Television) and many others.
Multilingual Ulla has lived, studied, worked and travelled extensively in many parts of the globe, but her specialist area is the South Pacific including the wild archipelago of Vaunatu. Her love for volcanoes and adventure travel, her passion for storytelling, her organisation skills and the thorough knowledge of the South Pacific and its envionments makes her the perfect guide for our new tours to Vanuatu.
You can find out more about Ulla and her activities on the website www.ullalohmann.de.

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Christof Hug-Fleck


Volcanologist, photojournalist and publisher Chris Hug-Fleck

Vulcanologist, photo journalist, author, publisher and teacher Chris Hug-Fleck is a multi-talented person. As a volcanologist/geologist, his research specialized in the volcanism of Kos (Greece), the Eolian Islands (Italy), Lengai volcano (Tanzania) and Iceland.
As a trip organizer, he has lead more than 50 expeditions to Iceland alone a since 1984. He calls Iceland one of favorite places, and knows it better than most Icelanders themselves. Other than Iceland, he has lead more than 130 expeditions between the North Pole and Cape Town, Hawaii and Peking. In 1988, together with the legendary Kraffts in 1988, he helped organizing one of the first expeditions to OlDoinyo Lengai volcano, during which Lengai's fascinating and unique natrocarbonatite lava was sampled live for the first time.
As an author and publisher, Chris has written 7 books and e-books about volcanoes, focus on Italy and Iceland. More books are in preparation at his C!H!F publishing house "World geographic" www.world-geographic.de. Most recently, the new edition of "Islands Naturwunder" and "Italiens Vulkane" - two greatly illustrated and easy-to-read compact introduction to Iceland's and Italy's geology (in German).

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Philip Ong

American-Brasilian volcanologist Philip Ong manages VOLCANO DISCOVERY HAWAI'I. His friendly charm and sympathic nature are contagious. Having worked intensively on the volcanoes of Hawaii, his passion and knowledge - not only about volcanoes, but almost every corner on the island, will easily transform your stay into a rare and unforgettable experience.

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Andi


Andi

Adi Susanto Rosadi ("Andi") from Yogyakarta, Indonesia, is the principal volcano expedition organizer for VolcanoDiscovery in Indonesia. He's been traveling around the country's many active volcanoes since he was a teenager and knows them better than anyone else, and maintains close contacts with volcanologists. He organizes workshops for local guides to teach them about volcanoes. During the large 2010 eruption of his home volcano Merapi, he was part of the dedicated emergency and rescue team that went into endangered areas to evacuate people, recover wounded and dead, often risking their own life.

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Steve Axford

is a full time photographer based in Melbourne Australia. He joined VolcanoDiscovery on many trips in Indonesia and in Africa and became a team member in 2006.
He specializes in travel photography with a particular interest in volcanoes and the people who live and work near them, and also macro photography where he has developed a reputation as photographer of rainforest fungi. He has traveled extensively through Asia, South America, and Africa, and of course Australasia and the Pacific islands where he has visited and photographed many active volcanoes and peoples of many different places. He has also become very familiar with the SE Australian and New Zealand rainforests, where he spends the autumn photographing the beautifully colored fungi that can be found there. Steve has now had photos published in places as varied as Belgian cat calendars and French knitting books, in English children’s books and American Biology texts, as designs for jewelry, on mobile phones and in many CSIRO and other reference books.
He has also developed relationships with several major international aid and travel organizations. Up until last year he worked as a senior IT architect, but has now left that industry to “go bush”, most probably in Tasmania where the fungi is second to none, and further develop a career in macro and travel photography. Steve’s website: steveaxford.smugmug.com

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Seiji and Hiromi Takeda


Seiji, one of our Japanese correspondants		Hiromi at Kilauea volcano, Hawai'i

Seiji and Hiromi Takeda are two volcano lovers who have accompanied Tom and Marco on various volcano expeditions over the past years.
They now joined our growing team to become correspondents and online editors for Japanese language content on this website. If you live in Japan and need a reference to VolcanoDiscovery, you can contact them through us.

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