Lecture Archive 2017: Recent Episodes
Aquarium of the Pacific
Through its year-round Guest Speaker Series, the Long Beach, California-based Aquarium of the Pacific helps visitors to learn about the most current and pressing issues related to the ocean and environment. These experts share stories from the field, new insights about ocean science and predictions for the future, and knowledge they have gathered about the ocean and its inhabitants over years of study. Speakers include university researchers, explorers, acclaimed authors, journalists, nature photographers, and more. These hour-long video podcasts present the lectures in full, including the speakers’ slideshow presentations.
Lecture date: November 30, 2017. Kim Steinhardt and Gary Griggs discuss their book, The Edge: The Pressured Past and Precarious Future of California’s Coast. The book examines the California coast’s past, present, and probable future in a time of climate change and expanding human activity.
Lecture date: November 14, 2017. Dr. Judith Kildow discusses the development of a “Blue Economy” movement to change how we treat and think about our oceans.
Lecture date: November 9, 2017. Nancy Knowlton discusses the Ocean Optimism initiative, whose goal is to recognize, learn from, replicate, and celebrate our successes.
Lecture date: November 2, 2017. Chris Lowe, professor of marine biology and director of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach, discusses what researchers think makes for a good white shark nursery and predictions of where the next ones might develop.
Lecture date: October 26, 2017. Sergio Gamberini, owner of SCUBA gear company Ocean Reef Group, has developed Nemo’s Garden, a method for growing plants underwater in a biosphere.
Lecture date: October 24, 2017. Elizabeth Keenan discusses novel tools to improve our ability to tackle some of our most pressing environmental issues, including how to foster and motivate environmentally friendly choices and communicate concerns about climate change to general audiences.
Lecture date: October 19, 2017. Murray Fisher discusses the Billion Oyster Project and its goal to restore one billion live oysters to New York Harbor by 2035 and to engage the community in that effort.
Lecture date: October 12, 2017. Rebecca Tarvin discusses how animals like poison dart frogs evolve genetic resistance to toxins and how this can affect whether they become toxic.
Lecture date: June 19, 2017. Debut novelist David Osborne discusses and sign copies of his book, "The Coming", a fictionalized account of the life of Daytime Smoke, the real-life son of explorer William Clark and a Nez Perce woman.
Lecture date: April 27, 2017. Mark Martinez of Southern California Edison discusses the water-energy nexus, a key topic of conversation, policy, and legislation across all levels of government and industry.
Lecture date: September 19, 2017. Dr. Ruth Gates unveils the complex biology that underpins natural variation in the response of corals to stress. She discusses how this knowledge can be harnessed to develop tools that build resilience on reefs, arresting and improving the prognosis for coral reefs.
Lecture date: September 7, 2017. Dr. Michael Prather shares a behind-the-scenes account of the IPCC assessments, a unique interaction between governments and the world’s leading scientists.
Lecture date: August 29, 2017. Kerry Kriger discusses amphibian conservation, providing an introduction to the natural history of amphibians, the threats they face, why amphibians are important and worth saving, and ways his organization protects amphibians and empowers citizens to make contributions to the betterment of the planet.
Lecture date: August 23, 2017. Aquarist Alexandra Lawlor discusses the Aquarium's abalone conservation efforts, shares photos of the Aquarium’s current brood stock and juveniles, and describes the abalone life cycle.
Lecture date: August 3, 2017. Dr. Gregory Stone, executive vice president and chief scientist for oceans at Conservation International, discusses the book he co-wrote with Nishan Degnarain, Soul of the Sea in the Age of the Algorithm: How Tech Start-Ups Can Heal Our Oceans.
Lecture date: July 26, 2017. Scientist and author Agustín Fuentes discusses his book, The Creative Spark: How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional.
Lecture date: July 18, 2017. Robert Schallmann provides an overview of how the military’s natural resources programs are balanced with its defense mission, while highlighting the successes and opportunities for conservation in our backyard.
Lecture date: June 22, 2017. UCLA professor Alex Hall and his research team have produced first-of-their-kind projections of future impacts of climate change on mountain landscapes and the snowpack. Dr. Hall presents key findings from the study.
Lecture date: June 8, 2017. Dr. Lee Kats of Pepperdine University discusses changes and challenges ahead for local frogs and salamanders.
Lecture date: May 30, 2017. Writer, sailor, and marine conservationist Jonathan White discusses his latest book, Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean—the result of his search for the world’s largest and fastest tides.
Lecture date: May 25, 2017. Peter Kareiva and Jerry Schubel moderate a panel discussion on the subject of aquaculture, or farmed seafood.
Lecture date: May 17, 2017. Daniel Goldman discusses the findings of his study investigating how aquatic animals transitioned to dry land millions of years ago.
Lecture date: May 2, 2017. Robert Pomeroy discusses the ongoing research and outreach in algae biofuels and introduces our pivot to biopolymers.
Lecture date: April 18, 2017. What happens when the conservation of a charismatic animal has negative impacts on human well-being? Researcher Tara Sayuri Whitty discusses this dilemma through the lens of the vaquita, the most endangered marine mammal in the world, and the gillnet ban established by the Mexican government to protect it.
Lecture date: March 16, 2017. Learn about the SoCal Oysters project at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. Students running this project discuss the feasibility of restoring Southern California coasts through oyster farming.
Lecture date: March 22, 2017. Christine Whitcraft discusses how human activities, including development and climate change, impact salt marshes and how we can successfully protect and restore these valuable ecosystems in the future.
Lecture date: March 15, 2017. Andrew Pershing discusses his research, which focuses on the causes and consequences of changing conditions in the Gulf of Maine.
Lecture date: March 9, 2017. Captain Patrick Smith returns to share stories of cargo ships, ferry boats, passenger liners, and ex-Civil War military vessels that all met their end in the picturesque but sometimes violent waters around the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
Lecture date: March 2, 2107. Kera Mathes shares her photographs and experiences from the summer of 2016 studying orcas in the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest.
Lecture date: February 24, 2017. Jonathan Rose discussed his book, The Well-Tempered City: What Modern Science, Ancient Civilizations, and Human Nature Teach Us About the Future of Urban Life, in which he identifies five key characteristics that are necessary for cities to thrive: coherence, circularity, resilience, community, and compassion.
Lecture date: February 21, 2017. Linda Cornish and Rick Moonen discussed seafood’s role in human and environmental health and share tips for sourcing and preparing healthy seafood.
Lecture date: February 1, 2017. Aquarium staff members Sandy Trautwein, Daniel Munoz, and Janet Monday shared their experiences from a recent trip to Guam to restore coral reefs.
Lecture date: January 26, 2017. Malcolm Bowman discussed the difficulties and challenges of protecting New York and New Jersey from another superstorm like Sandy in 2012.
Lecture date: January 19, 2017. Barbara Crane showed through research for her historical novel, When Water Was Everywhere, what the Los Angeles River watershed looked like less than 200 years ago.
Lecture date: January 5, 2017. Ken Kurtis related the experiences he’s had diving with the great whites of Isla Guadalupe, a remote Mexican island 200 miles southwest of Ensenada.