Nathaniel Philbrick is an American author and a winner of the National Book Award for his work of maritime history, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. He has written extensively about sailing. His works include The Passionate Sailor and Second Wind: A Sailfish Sailor's Odyssey. Philbrick is also the editor of Yaahting, A Parody. He is the director of the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies and is a research fellow at the Nantucket Historical Association. Philbrick is a former intercollegiate All American sailor and North American Sunfish champion. He has also written articles on sailing and American maritime history for Vanity Fair, The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe. In 2002, Philbrick was named the Nathaniel Bowditch Maritime Scholar of the Year by the American Merchant Marine Museum. He is presently at work on a book about the Battle of Little Big Horn.

Ryan J. Woods is Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of American Ancestors/New England Historic Genealogical Society and is an appointed member of the Special Commission for the 250th Anniversary of The American Revolution in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He has played a key role in developing services and experiences to meet twenty-first-century research and information access requirements. He was the lead creator of AmericanAncestors.org, our award-winning website and the most-used genealogical society website in the world. He has fostered and managed important collaborations with commercial and nonprofit partners, including overseeing the recruitment of more than 1 billion searchable records to AmericanAncestors.org, and he was a lead staff member in the establishment of our Jewish Heritage Center. Currently, Ryan is focused on partnerships, and business planning for our headquarter expansion and the creation of a national visitor destination experience. A dedicated researcher, Ryan has authored pedagogical articles about the use of historical biographies to teach character and ethics. He has also contributed genealogical articles and several book forewords for historical and genealogical publications; he regularly presents at national historical and genealogical conferences and events. Ryan serves on several nonprofit boards and committees, including as Chairman of the Committee on Heraldry, as a member of the Committee on Pretensions of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Connecticut, as Secretary of the Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as a development committee member for Plymouth 400, as partner representative on the Mayor of Boston’s Green Ribbon Commission, and as immediate past-President of the Boston University School of Education Alumni Association. He is also a member of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Florida, and the Saint Nicholas Society of New York City.