Experience the darkness beyond the void.
Tales From Dark Places Co-Chair John Scheltens, along with Co-Chair and Founder, Chris Nicola invite you on March 21st to attend an exciting and unique daylong event featuring renowned explorers who will take you to amazing and remote locations hidden in total darkness. Topics include stories from the darkness of ancient tombs, underwater labyrinths, abandoned Cold War fallout shelters, and the strange creatures that evolve in the absence of light.
John Scheltens (FN91) – Past President of the National Speleological Society is this year’s Emcee for the annual event “Tales From Dark Places” hosted by The Explorers Club and sponsored by the National Speleological Foundation and the National Speleological Society.
John Scheltens is a lifelong cave explorer whose adventures have taken him to some of the largest and deepest caves of the world. He is both a Fellow of the National Speleological Society and a Fellow of The Explorers Club (FN91). He has been recognized and awarded many times for his lifetime accomplishments in caving to include the Outstanding Service Award of the NSS.
Come join us on Saturday March 21st as John introduces you to an outstanding group of explorers who will take you to places very few have ever seen.
Annette Engel, Ph.D.
Annette is the first Executive Director of the National Speleological Society. Prior to taking on her new position, she was a renowned professor of speleology, geochemistry, and geomicrobiology for 20 years. Annette started caving when she was 12 years old and has explored caves throughout the world. She is a Fellow of the Explorers Club, Fellow and Life member of the National Speleological Society, and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her most recent adventures have taken her to Hawai‘i, where she is a leader in exploring and studying lava tube biodiversity and an advocate for the protection and conservation of land associated with critical subterranean habitats.
Bernie Chowdhury & Nasreen Haque
Explorers Club Fellow Dr. Nasreen S. Haque is a cellular and molecular biologist currently leading the Genomic Observatory and the Microbial Complexity Atlas (MCA). Her global initiiatives involve mapping microbial ecosystems in marine fissures, caves, mangroves, hydrothermal systems, and urban waterways. Here work integrates field exploration, metagenomics, and multifractal analysis to advance ecological resilience and biodiscovery. Recent investigations in New York City’s Gowanus Canal uncovered microbial species with therapeutic potential, featured in major media outlets. Through these efforts, Dr. Haque is shaping a new science focused on understanding and preserving the hidden architecture of microbial life in diverse environments.
Explorers Club Fellow Bernie Chowdhury is the Chief Operating Officer of Genomic Observatory, a not-for-profit focused on global environmental and genomic research. An internationally recognized expert on extreme diving environments, with over 40 years of diving experience, Bernie has combined underwater exploration with scientific projects studying microbes in extreme environments. Bernie has led major wreck and cave diving expeditions, authored The Last Dive (non-fiction, HarperCollins, 2000, published in 11 languages and still available in 2026), founded one dive magazine, edited three diving magazines, and contributed widely to international publications and Conferences. His work connects technical diving, hyperbaric medicine, and environmental science, earning him awards for education and aquatic research. Today, he supports initiatives mapping microbial ecosystems to advance environmental genomics and conservation.
Kristin Romey
For more than 25 years, Kristin Romey has worked in, and reported from, burial sites from Mexico to Sudan, including sacrificial cenotes in the Maya world, submerged burials beneath the pyramids of Sudan, and overnights in the tomb of King Tut and what is traditionally considered the tomb of Jesus Christ. She shares her experiences, including exclusive photos and videos, of her times in ancient tombs and what it takes to explore them.
Kristin is an award-winning journalist and Fellow of the Explorers Club. A trained archaeologist with field experience in a dozen countries, Romey has directed or contributed to several significant expeditions, including the National Geographic Issyk Kul project in Kyrgyzstan and the Vasco de Gama shipwreck expedition to Oman. Her first experience working ‘underground’ was in the cenotes of Yucatan, where she documented Maya sacrificial practices as executive editor for Archaeology Magazine. A former senior editor and writer at National Geographic, Romey has a masters degree in Anthropology (Nautical Archaeology) from Texas A&M University and a bachelors in ancient Greek from Vassar College.
Adam Weaver
Adam is a project caver focusing on many of the large cave projects in the western United States plus expeditions to Greenland.
He is an expedition leader in Jewel, Ft. Stanton, and Wind Caves. Through his efforts he has discovered and mapped more than 80 miles of new cave passage.
He the past Administrative Vice-president of the National Speleological Society and is currently the production editor of the NSS News – America’s Caving Magazine. He is Vice President of the Black Hills Cave and Nature Conservancy, and serves on the board of directors of the Cave Exploration Society, Cave Conservancy of Hawaii, and Cave Discovery Initiative.
Professionally, Adam is the CFO of the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research (Dinosaurs).
He holds an M.S. in Natural Resource Stewardship, with a focus on Ecological Restoration and Water Resource Management from Colorado State University.
Martin Broen
Martin is a conservation photographer, technical diver and underwater explorer, known for his award-winning photography of dark places, and the book “Light in the Underworld”
Michael Ray Taylor
Michael pictured in the top right image, Ian in the other four
Ian Doyle Baren, FR ’97, was an active cave explorer best known for multiple expeditions to the People’s Republic of China, discovering and mapping dozens of large cave systems. With a degree in Mandarin Chinese from Middlebury College, he worked for several years in Hong Kong, traveling extensively through South China. His relationship with the eminent Chinese geologist Mo Zhang Da led to the first joint U.S.-China cave expedition in 1988.
Ian went on to lead or co-lead several additional expeditions, finding and mapping major cave systems as chronicled in multiple articles and the book South China Caves, published by the Cave Research Foundation. He successfully carried The Explorers Club Flag 138 in China 1998 and Flag 161 in 2004. Closer to home, he was known for exploring New York City’s abandoned Old Croton Aqueduct. He died in 2019 at 55.
A long-time friend of Ian, Michael is a caver and journalist known for his work on caves and cave science. His books include Cave Passages, Dark Life, Caves: Exploring Hidden Realms, and Hidden Nature, which was a 2021 finalist for the Reed Environmental Writing Award. He is a Fellow National of The Explorers Club and a Fellow of the National Speleological Society and the Cave Research Foundation, as well as recipient of the NSS Spelean Arts and Letters Award.
