George Kourounis
Explorer in Residence for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society
Biography
George Kourounis is an explorer, storm chaser & TV presenter who has spent 25 years documenting extreme forces of nature and natural phenomena worldwide including tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, floods, and the effects of climate change.
He holds the title of National Geographic Explorer, Explorer In Residence for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and served the maximum term as the Canadian Chapter Chair of the Explorers Club.
Best known for having hosted the TV series “Angry Planet” he also co-hosted “Storm Hunters” for The Weather Network and is a regular on-camera contributor for “Strange Evidence” & “What On Earth?” on Science Channel. He’s appeared in programs for National Geographic, Discovery, Smithsonian Channel, Netflix, most of the major TV networks, and is frequently invited to comment about global weather & natural disasters by CNN, BBC, CBC, and other news outlets.
George earned a Guinness World Record for being the first person to ever set foot at the bottom of the Darvaza “Doorway To Hell” flaming gas crater in remote Turkmenistan, the project was funded by a National Geographic science grant and was also filmed for Nat Geo television.
He has documented changes to melting permafrost in Siberia, sea level rise in Tuvalu, shifting tornado & hurricane patterns in North America, wildfires in Australia, and melting polar ice.
In 2014 he was awarded the Stefansson Medal from the Explorers Club Canadian Chapter "For outstanding contribution to science and to public education by documenting extreme environments through filmmaking.” In 2020 was awarded the Leif Erikson Exploration Award from the Exploration Museum in Iceland.
He frequently is asked to speak at events including 5 TEDx talks, the Global Exploration Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, and the United Nations Environmental Emergencies forum in Oslo, Norway.