Francisco Dallmeier
Director, Center for Conservation Education and Sustainability
Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute
National Zoological Park
Francisco Dallmeier is director of the Center for Conservation Education and Sustainability (CCES) of the National Zoo. CCES is engaged in world-class academic programs; in providing business and industry with science-based solutions for minimizing their impact on biodiversity; and in developing strategic conservation partnerships for sustainable development. CCES academic programs have trained over 1,500 professionals worldwide and produced a variety of publications about the importance of biodiversity conservation in Latin America and Africa. Recently, Dallmeier collaborated with Environment Canada leading the
International Symposium on Climate Change and Biodiversity in the Americas. Two important symposium publications resulted from this international event.
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Bert Drake
Plant Physiologist, Senior Scientist
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
Bert G. Drake is a plant physiologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland. He leads two major ecosystem projects on the impacts of rising atmospheric CO2 and climate change on the capacity of land ecosystems to assimilate carbon dioxide. The Chesapeake Bay wetland study is the longest-running experiment of its type ever undertaken, expanded in 1996 to include similar studies at the wildlife refuge at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, and resulting in more than 100 publications. Dr. Drake was designated the Smithsonian 2005 Distinguished Science Lecturer for his long record of research and public outreach.
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Charles Duncan
Collections Specialist
Archives of American Art
Charles H. Duncan is collections specialist for the Archives of American Art. Based in New York City, he heads the acquisition of research collections in the region and has published and created numerous exhibitions on the Archives’ holdings. Trained as an art historian, he has worked in leading New York art galleries as well as independently with private collections, including those of Agnes Gund, George Ortiz, and the estate of Francesca Woodman. His current research interests include the intersection of modernist painting and photography, particularly within the oeuvre of Abstract Expressionist Richard Pousette-Dart.
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Tricia Edwards
Educator, Lemelson Center
National Museum of American History
Tricia Edwards is the Lemelson Center’s education specialist. She develops the conceptual framework for school and family programs centered on both historical and contemporary topics related to invention and the creative process such as the award-winning Innovative Lives program. She also develops instructional materials, evaluation instruments, and leads teacher training workshops on invention education for both local and national audiences. Edwards developed the Lemelson Center’s Spark!Lab, a hands-on invention activity center at the National Museum of American History.
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Bill Fitzhugh
Curator of Archaeology
Director, Arctic Studies Center
National Museum of Natural History
William W. Fitzhugh directs the Arctic Studies Center in the Smithsonian’s Department of Anthropology and has spent more than thirty years studying arctic peoples and cultures. His primary field is arctic and subarctic archaeology and paleoecology. Broader aspects of his research feature the evolution of northern maritime adaptations, impacts of climate and environmental change, and culture contacts. Recent research has been on circumpolar cultural connections and the origins of Eskimo culture and art. Dr. Fitzhugh’s films and exhibitions include Crossroads of Continents: Native Cultures of Siberia and Alaska; Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People; and Vikings: the North Atlantic Saga.
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Edward E. Geary
Director
GLOBE Program
Edward E. Geary is director of the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program, an international environmental education and science program in more than 100 countries and 20,000 classrooms. In addition to his geological research and publications, Dr. Geary has developed and led several dynamic science education programs including a systemic U.S. effort to transform how we teach and learn about Earth (1999-present). A past president of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (2003), he is currently working on a worldwide initiative to engage more than 1 million students, teachers, and citizens in inquiry-based climate research between 2011 and 2013.
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A. Mark Haddon
Director of Education
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
Mark Haddon has been working at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Edgewater, Maryland, since 1984. Starting out as a research technician in the Estuarine Ecology Lab, he studied populations of fish and blue crabs and the health of the Chesapeake Bay. In 1989, he became director of education at SERC and incorporated many of his research skills into the education programs for students and teachers. Now he designs environmental programs at SERC that integrate research methods and data collecting. He has a bachelor’s degree in biology and teaching, and a master’s degree in secondary education.
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Stanley Heckadon-Moreno
Director of Communications and Public Programs
Coordinator, Galeta Point Marine Laboratory
Smithsonian Tropical Research Center
Heckadon-Moreno, a pioneer of the environmental movement in Central America, joined the Smithsonian Tropical Research Center as a research associate in 1983. As coordinator of its Galeta Point Marine Laboratory, he has helped to place the preservation of Panama’s mangroves on the national agenda. In the early 1990s, with the end of military rule, he became director general of Panama’s National Institute of Natural Renewable Resources (RENARE). He is a founding member of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and has lectured extensively to policymakers on issues of development and conservation. He has published several books, including Naturalists on the Isthmus of Panama (2004).
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Doug Herman
Senior Geographer
National Museum of the American Indian
Douglas Herman is senior geographer for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and adjunct associate professor at Towson University, Maryland. An early architect of NMAI’s Indigenous geography project, he went on to create Pacific Worlds, a web-based indigenous-geography education project for Hawai'i and the American Pacific. Both projects focus on indigenous cultural knowledge and environmental understandings. He has published several articles and given numerous scholarly presentations regarding the representation of Indigenous cultures and the importance of Indigenous knowledge. He earned his doctorate in geography from the University of Hawai'i in 1995.
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Leonard P. Hirsch
Senior Policy Advisor
Smithsonian Institution
Leonard P. Hirsch is Senior Policy Advisor at the Smithsonian Institution where he supports the scientific programs of the Smithsonian, with emphasis on global environmental concerns. Len is a member of the White House Committee on Environment and Natural Resources of the National Science and Technology Council where he works on issues of biological diversity informatics and facilitating the coordination of government research on land and seascape change. He is active on the subcommittees and workgroups on Earth observations and ecosystem services. He is active in work with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (as part of the US delegation), and participates in the coordination processes of the Conventions on Combating Desertification, and Climate Change, and the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.
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Nancy Knowlton
Sant Chair for Marine Science
National Museum of Natural History
Dr. Nancy Knowlton holds the Sant Chair in Marine Science, the first endowed chair at the National Museum of Natural History. This position provides leadership for the Smithsonian’s Ocean Initiative, an interdisciplinary enterprise to foster greater public understanding of ocean issues. As a coral reef scientist, she studies the ecology and evolution of these diverse and threatened ecosystems, including the impact of climate change. She was also the founding director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation and a professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography of the University of California at San Diego.
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Don Moore
Associate Director for Animal Care
National Zoological Park
Don Moore is associate director for animal care at the Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park. As a zoo-based wildlife biologist, animal behaviorist, and educator, he has helped to renovate and manage several zoos, and has assisted in the creation of conservation management plans for wild animals in nature, for more than 30 years. Dr Moore has published more than four dozen papers or manuals on animal husbandry and behavior, and also contributes to and authors publications for the general public and children. He has received national and local awards for excellence in interpretation of natural history and wildlife behavior.
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Scott Richardson
K-12 Program Coordinator, Learn and Serve America
Corporation for National and Community Service
Scott Richardson is the K-12 Program Coordinator for Learn and Serve America at the Corporation for National and Community Service. He is responsible for Learn and Serve’s programmatic and grant-making activities in school-based service-learning. Formerly, Scott was the Director of Research and Design at Earth Force and Director of Curriculum at the Close Up Foundation, where he conducted civics and service-learning workshops for teachers and students in the US, Russia, Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands.
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Joe Sacco
Associate Director of Education, Friends of the National Zoo
National Zoological Park
Joseph M. Sacco is the Smithsonian’s National Zoo’s associate director for education. He oversees all public education programs provided by the Friends of the National Zoo, including public demonstrations, curriculum for K-12 students, teacher workshops, and community outreach initiatives held throughout the year at both the Zoo and its Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Virginia. Sacco has 32 years of education experience including teaching science, writing curricula, counseling students, serving as a middle-school principal, and leading graduate courses in team building and group dynamics.
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Scott Wing
Curator of Fossil Plants, Department of Paleobiology
National Museum of Natural History
Scott Wing has worked as a research scientist, curator, and educator in the National Museum of Natural History’s Department of Paleobiology since 1984. He studies fossil plants and past climate change, emphasizing periods of globally warm climate 50-70 million years ago. For the last 10 years his research has focused on a geologically short period of extreme warmth called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM. Like the warming being caused by humans, the PETM was the result of a large release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and had strong effects on ecosystems and the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans.
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