Passport to Peru: Free Lecture Series

Kim MacQuarrie
Peru Explorer & Four-Time Emmy Winner

Kim MacQuarrie is an American-born Four-time Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker and author of 3 books on Peru. He has a bachelor’s degree in biology and a Master’s in anthropology.

He has spent several years in Peru visiting all the Inca ruins he has been able to find, and living with the Yora, a recently-contacted tribe of indigenous Amazonians. This experience was the inspiration for his book The Last Days of the Incas, which recounts one of the greatest epic stories in the Americas - the conquest of the 10-million-strong Inca Empire by 168 Spaniards.

Javier Puente
Ph.D. in Latin American history from Georgetown University

Javier Puente holds a Ph.D. in Latin American history from Georgetown University. His research focuses on twentieth-century agrarian, rural, and environmental history of the Andes.

He is a professor of Latin American and Latino/a Studies at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Javier’s extensive knowledge of the history of the Andean region and the know-how of the ins and outs of guiding is a significant piece of the puzzle in making our travelers genuinely experience the most out of their tours.

Kennedy Leavens
Founder of Awamaki

Kennedy Leavens is the founder and director of Awamaki, a non-profit in Peru working to connect Andean women artisans with the modern economy through their ancestral crafts.

Peru captured Kennedy's imagination on a school trip in 2001. She went on to study Latin America and economic development at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, and moved to Peru after graduation. There, she founded Awamaki, and she lived in Peru for most of about eight years. During that time, she earned her Masters in Public Administration, specializing in nonprofit management, from the University of Washington in Seattle. Kennedy now lives in Seattle full-time, travels to Peru regularly, and dreams of moving her family back there someday.