Featured Speakers
Environment, Natural Resources, and Sustainability
Robert Ballard
Oceanographer who discovered the TITANIC
“Human History Under Water”
September 14, 2017
Best known for his 1985 discovery of the TITANIC, Dr. Robert Ballard has succeeded in tracking down numerous, significant shipwrecks. He is a National Geographic Society Explorer-In-Residence, a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, and president of the Ocean Exploration Trust. An explorer, discoverer and historian, Ballard’s fascinating journeys can teach us a great deal about our past, and they have encouraged others to take tremendous strides in the survey of the undiscovered mysteries of the deep sea.
Jean-Michel Cousteau
Underwater Explorer, Environmentalist, Educator and Film Producer
“The Great Ocean Adventure”
October 1, 2014
Jean-Michel Cousteau has dedicated himself and his vast experience to communicate to people of all nations and generations his love and concern for our water planet. Since first being “thrown overboard” by his father Jacques Cousteau at the age of seven, with newly invented SCUBA gear on his back, Cousteau has been exploring the ocean realm. He has investigated the world’s oceans aboard Calypso and Alcyone for much of his life. Honoring his heritage, Cousteau founded Ocean Futures Society in 1999 to carry on this pioneering work.
Jane Goodall
Founder, The Jane Goodall Institute and UN Messenger of Peace
“Sowing the Seeds of Hope”
October 1, 2013
Dr. Jane Goodall began her landmark study of chimpanzee behavior in 1960, in what is now Tanzania. Her work at Gombe Stream would become the foundation of future primatological research. In 1977, she established the Jane Goodall Institute, which is widely recognized for innovative, community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa. In 1991, Goodall founded Roots & Shoots, a global environmental and humanitarian youth program. In 2002, Goodall was appointed to serve as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and in 2003, she was named a Dame of the British Empire.
Dr. Katharine Hayhoe
Climate Scientist, Texas Tech University
“Climate Change: A Threat Multiplier”
September 17, 2020
Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist whose research focuses on developing and applying high-resolution climate projections to understand what climate change means for people and the natural environment. She is Endowed Professor in Public Policy and Public Law in the Department of Political Science and co-directs the Climate Center at Texas Tech University. She holds a Ph.D. in atmospheric science from the University of Illinois and honorary doctorates from Colgate University and from Victoria College at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Marshall Shepherd
Director of the Atmospheric Sciences Program, University of Georgia
“Zombies, Sports, and Cola: Implications for Communicating Weather and Climate Science”
March 25, 2021
Dr. Marshall Shepherd is a leading international expert in weather and climate. He chairs the NASA Earth Sciences Advisory Committee and was a past member of its subcommittee. He hosts The Weather Channel’s Award-Winning show, “Weather Geeks,” a pioneering Sunday talk podcast/show and is a contributor to Forbes Magazine. In 2013, he served as President of the American Meteorological Society, the nation’s largest and oldest professional/science society in the atmospheric and related sciences.
Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer
Distinguished Teaching Professor and Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, College of Environmental Science, The State University of New York (SUNY)
“The Honorable Harvest”
April 14, 2022
Dr. Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned her wide acclaim. She tours widely and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer’s interests include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land.
Social Justice and Diversity
Anita Hill
Women’s and Civil Rights Advocate
“Social Movement to Social Impact: Putting an End to Sexual Harassment in the Workplace”
November 15, 2018
Anita Hill is a law professor at Brandeis University and an advocate for equality and civil rights. She famously testified against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in a sexual harassment case in 1991. Today, Hill is a proponent of Title IX awareness in education and employment practices and is collaborating with artist Mark Bradford to create a 400-foot painting in Washington, D.C. that revisits the lost texts of civil rights activist Myrtle Evers-Williams.
Soledad O’Brien
Award-Winning Journalist and Entrepreneur
“Diversity: On TV, Behind the Scenes, and in Our Lives”
September 18, 2019
As the host of the Sunday morning syndicated political show, Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien, O’Brien tells the stories of people, giving voice to the underserved and disenfranchised. She discusses events of the day and brings a fresh perspective on diverse and contemporary issues to foster change in communities and organizations. As an entrepreneur and prominent philanthropist, O’Brien founded PowHERful, a foundation that mentors and funds college tuition and expenses for young women.
Sir Salman Rushdie
Champion of Freedom of Expression
“Public Events, Private Lives: Literature and Politics in the Modern World”
October 5, 2011
Sir Salman Rushdie, a fervent champion of freedom of expression, has written numerous award-winning novels. The Satanic Verses, written in 1998, so incensed the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini (1902-1989) that he issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death. As a result, Rushdie spent the next decade in hiding. Since the fatwa was lifted, Rushdie has emerged as one of the world’s most engaged and outspoken intellectuals.
Gloria Steinem
American Journalist, Activist and Feminist Icon
“Reflections on Feminism: A Voyage of Discovery with Gloria Steinem”
November 6, 2009
Gloria Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and a vocal activist for a variety of social and political causes. In the 1960s, she helped found New York magazine. In 1963, she broke new cultural and journalistic ground with an investigative report on how the women of Playboy were treated. In the 1970s, Steinem became a leading political leader and one of the heads of the second-wave feminism, the women’s rights movement. She became founding editor and publisher of Ms. magazine, bringing feminist issues to the forefront of the movement. Steinem also co-founded the Women’s Action Alliance, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Women’s Media Center, and Choice USA.
Culture and Communication
Peter Bergen
CNN National Security Analyst
“Making Sense in a World of Trouble”
September 29, 2015
One of the few Westerners to interview Osama bin Laden face-to-face, Peter Bergen is a print and television journalist, documentary producer, and the author of four books, three of which were New York Times bestsellers and three of which were named books of the year by the Washington Post. The books have been translated into 20 languages.
Walter Isaacson
American Historian, Journalist and Writer
“Creative Thinkers Who Have Shaped Our World”
October 8, 2008
Walter Isaacson is a graduate of Harvard College and of Pembroke College of Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He began his journalistic career at the Sunday Times of London and then the New Orleans Times-Picayune/States-Item. He joined Time Magazine in 1978 and served as a political correspondent, national editor and editor of new media before becoming the magazine’s 14th managing editor in 1996. He became Chairman and CEO of CNN in 2001, and then president and CEO of the Aspen Institute in 2003.
Louise Leakey
Third Generation Palaeoanthropologist
“Secrets in the Sand: Revelations into How We Became Humans”
October 2, 2012
Dr. Louise Leakey is the third generation of her family to dig for humanity’s past in East Africa. Like her parents, Richard and Meave Leakey, and her grandparents, Louis and Mary Leakey, Louise focuses her study on the evolution of early human ancestors. In 2001, Leakey and Meave, found a previously unknown hominid, the 3.5-million-year-old Kenyanthropus platyops, at Lake Turkana — the same region where Richard, discovered the “Turkana Boy” fossil, and near Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge, where her grandparents discovered the bones of Homo habilis. In August 2007, Louise and Meave dug up new H. habilis bones. This find suggests that different species of pre-humans lived side-by-side for almost half a million years.
Richard Leakey
Second Generation Paleoanthropologist
“Why Our Origins Matter”
October 10, 2007
Dr. Richard Leakey has made international headlines for his work in Kenya and is one of the most controversial, influential and inspirational figures in African politics and world conservation. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 scientific articles and books, including The Origins of Humankind, Origins Reconsidered, and The Sixth Extinction. Renowned for his work in early human origins, Leakey became head of Kenya’s Wildlife Department and later an outspoken political outsider to save Kenya’s natural resources and specifically the African elephant.
Rick Steves
American Travel Writer, TV Personality and Activist
“Travel as a Political Act”
February 20, 2020
Rick Steves is a respected authority on European travel. He took his first trip to Europe in 1969, and has since developed his own business, Rick Steves’ Europe, writing more than 50 country, city and regional guidebooks; running a successful European tour program; hosting a weekly public radio program; and encouraging Americans to integrate themselves on a global level by broadening their perspectives through travel. Steves also works with advocacy groups focusing on economic and social justice, drug policy reform and ending hunger.
Bob Woodward
Pulitzer Prize-winning Writer and Investigative Reporter
“The Age of the American Presidency”
September 28, 2016
Called “the most celebrated journalist of our age” by The Wall Street Journal, Bob Woodward has established himself as a journalistic icon who gained international attention when he and Carl Bernstein broke the disturbing news of the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration. Their book about the scandal, “All the President’s Men” won a Pulitzer Prize and was featured on TIME magazine’s list of the all-time 100 best non-fiction books as “perhaps the most influential piece of journalism in history.”
Technology and Medicine
Colonel Eileen M. Collins
American Astronaut (ret.) and U.S. Air Force Colonel (ret.)
“Leadership Lessons from Apollo to Discovery”
November 13, 2012
Colonel Eileen M. Collins is a retired American astronaut and a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel. A former military instructor and test pilot, she was selected to be an astronaut in 1992 and was the first female pilot and first female commander of a Space Shuttle with mission STS-93, launched in July 1999, which deployed the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. During her career, Collins logged 38 days, 8 hours, and 10 minutes in outer space.
Dr. Moogega Cooper
Planetary Protection Engineer, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab
“Diversity in STEAM from a Real-Life Guardian of the Galaxy”
October 7, 2021
Dr. Cooper is the planetary protection lead of the famed NASA 2020 Mars mission — with its highly viewed landing of the Perseverance rover on Feb. 18, 2021. Her work with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is integral to the ongoing mission to discern whether Mars could be habitable for humans and that we don’t harm what’s already there — a job she has been working up to for most of her life.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Astrophysicist and Television Documentarian
“On the Origins of the Universe”
October 6, 2010
Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson was born and raised in New York City. He earned his B.A. in physics from Harvard and his Ph.D. in astrophysics from Columbia University. Tyson’s professional research interests include star formation, exploding stars, dwarf galaxies and the structure of our Milky Way. He obtains his data from the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as from telescopes in California, New Mexico, Arizona and in the Andes Mountains of Chile. The PBS/NOVA documentary “The Pluto Files,” based on Tyson’s book chronicling his experience at the center of the controversy over Pluto’s planetary status, premiered in March 2010.
Lisa Randall
Harvard University Physicist
“Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs”
April 4, 2019
Dr. Lisa Randall is an acclaimed Harvard physicist and author of the book “ Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs .” Randall’s studies involve the most fundamental questions about the nature of matter, space and the universe. Her research into extra dimensions of space, particle physics and cosmology has made her one of the most important and cited theoretical physicists today, and she was named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People.”