About Us

Lee Goldman

Lee Goldman grew up in Philadelphia and got his first taste of the underwater world on a SCUBA diving trip to the island of Bonaire, Netherland Antilles. A year after his return from the warm Caribbean waters he left to pursue his dream of working as a marine biologist for the beautiful but much colder waters in the Pacific Northwest. There he earned a degree in Marine Biology from Western Washington University.

After graduating and upon completion of a Sea Symphony, a video he produced and filmed that showcases some of the marine life in the Pacific Northwest, he spent the next ten years traveling around the world as a guide and biologist working in places such as the Florida Keys, Belize, Vancouver Island, B.C., Palau, Guam, and the Philippines. In 2002 he left Palau to earn a master’s degree at the University of Guam Marine Lab where he investigated coral interactions and pioneered new techniques for culturing corals. During his time in Guam, he also worked as a biologist for the Department of Fisheries’ Sea Turtle Monitoring Project and helped develop community-based sea turtle awareness program. Lee is a certified SCUBA instructor, an avid birdwatcher, and conservationist.

After living in the Philippines for over ten years, he now makes his home in Las Vegas, USA where he has to travel a bit further to get to his favorite snorkeling destinations throughout the Indo-Pacific region. He has written two books, Snorkeler’s guide to Marine Life of the Philippines, published in 2012, and his latest book with Ethan Daniels, Marine Life and Natural History of the Coral Triangle. The latter is available through Amazon.

Ethan Daniels

Ethan Daniels is a photojournalist and guide currently based in Portland, Oregon. Annual travels take him all over the planet, from the rich temperate waters of the north Atlantic and the eastern Pacific, to the warm, diverse coral triangle, Andaman Sea, and Caribbean. Having spent his youth on the shores of New England, Ethan became fascinated with the bizarre marine life that thrives beneath the water line. He studied at Bucknell University and completed his graduate work at the University of Guam Marine Lab in 1999. His thesis focused on the chemical imprinting of anemonefishes. Ethan spent nine years living in Micronesia exploring the region’s unique marine habitats, flora, and fauna.

Favoring parts of the world that are off-the-beaten-track, he currently combines his passions for natural history and photography to guide, write, and promote the security of the world’s marine ecosystems. Ethan’s work can be found in Alert Diver, Asian Diver, Asian Geographic, EZ Dive Magazine, Fifty Fathoms, Ocean Geographic, Outside, SCUBA diving, Sport Diver, SCUBA Diver Australia, Tauchen, Unterwasser, and other publications. Ethan has written three books, Under Cape Cod Waters, Coral Triangle Seascapes, and Marine Life and Natural History of the Coral Triangle (available on Amazon) that he wrote with Lee Goldman.

Brian Magnier

Brian Magnier currently resides in the La Grande, Oregon, but grew up in Massachusetts where he spent much of his youth exploring the local natural environs and developing a life-long fascination for birds. As a candidate for a Bachelor of Science in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University, he studied birds in Borneo, mammals in Alaska, and published a paper on scorpionfly behavior.

After graduating in 2015, he worked as a field assistant in Papua New Guinea studying wrens, but freely admits that it was the lure of tropical reefs that captured his attention. During his time along the wild coastline of PNG, he spent all his spare time snorkeling the rich reefs that lay just offshore and identifying all of the amazing marine life. With his passion towards the natural world now focused on marine environments he has studied invasive lionfish and surveyed nesting leatherback turtles on St. Kitts. He furthered his academic career with a Master’s degree from the University of Miami and currently divides his time between working as a professional naturalist, an environmental educator, and a photojournalist.

Brent Tibbatts

Brent Tibbatts grew up in Washington State where he spent much of his young life fishing and snorkeling around the cool waters of Puget Sound. His interests intensified when, in 1993, he moved to the island of Guam, Micronesia and was exposed to the diversity and pageantry of the tropical coral reef. Between his snorkeling and SCUBA diving activities, he completed a degree in biology from the University of Guam. As a student of the marine lab, he spent many hours cataloguing fish species found around Guam as well as aiding faculty and students with research and reef management projects.

In 1998 he began working as a freshwater and marine biologist for the Guam’s Department of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources. During his over 20 years of service he was responsible for dozens of environmental projects that represented potential impacts to marine, freshwater, and terrestrial habitats. He also managed an annual portfolio of grants totaling $250,000, and is Guam’s representative at fisheries meetings in Hawaii, American Samoa, New Caledonia, and the CNMI. He is a co-author on five papers relating to aquatic issues on Guam and in Micronesia and is a frequent speaker for high school, university, military, and educational groups, discussing fish identification and fisheries issues on Guam and in the Micronesian region.

Dave Burdick

David Burdick currently works as a Research Associate at the University of Guam Marine Lab, where he coordinates Guam’s Long-term Coral Reef Monitoring Program and serves as Biorepository Manager for a multi-year NSF EPSCoR-funded project. Originally from Conneaut, Ohio, David graduated from Hiram College in 1999 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Biology and College of Charleston in South Carolina in 2006 with a Master’s Degree in Environmental Studies. He moved to Guam in 2004 as part of NOAA’s Pacific Islands Technical Assistantship program, through which he provided training in Geographic Information Systems and developed a benthic habitat atlas for the island’s nearshore waters.

David has since been involved in various aspects coral reef management, research, and monitoring on Guam, such as marine protected areas, recreational misuse and overuse, military dredging, coral bleaching response, and restoration. In 2013 he contributed to the book, Environments of Guam, edited by Danko Taborosi, and is currently working on a comprehensive account of the hard corals of the Mariana Islands with Richard Randall and a guide to the echinoderms of the Mariana Islands with Dr. Alex Kerr and Dr. Gustav Paulay. An avid amateur underwater photographer and naturalist, David has also developed the website, www.Guamreeflife.com, that aims to raise awareness of Guam’s rich marine biodiversity and document the beauty of Guam’s marine life. Photos David captured on visits to coral reefs around the world can be found at dburdick.smugmug.com.