Speakers
Friday, Nov 6 -
Flip Nicklin
TBD
Flip Nicklin is a world-renowned underwater photographer. He has spent his 47-year career specializing in the photography of marine mammals, especially whales and dolphins. Through 21 National Geographic articles from 1981 to the present, he has worked closely with top whale researchers from around the world. From this work Flip…
Fred Sharpe, PhD
TBD
Fred has been studying the foraging ecology of humpback whales in SE Alaska since 1987. He received his Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University, focusing his research on acoustics, social behavior, and bubble tools. Fred’s interest in conservation biology has led him to follow whales to their Hawaiian wintering grounds to…
Hannah Myers, PhD
TBD
Hannah Myers, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She focuses on reducing incidental human-caused mortality of marine mammals and on basic ecological research to inform conservation and management. In Alaska, her work includes a collaborative project with the Amendment…
Saturday, Nov 7 -
John Straley
TBD
John Straley graduated from the Browning School for Boys in New York City in 1971. His father had grown up in Iowa and Wyoming and didn’t care to have his youngest son become a city boy. In the summers John worked in the wilderness of north central Washington State as a wrangler…
Finn Straley
TBD
Finn Straley was born in Sitka Alaska in 1988. As a youth he spent many hours looking for whales with his mom in her yellow skiff. He also spent a great deal of time sitting on a couch in his dad’s Private Investigation office, reading books about Russian prisoner tattoos.…
Dr. Ted Cheeseman
TBD
Dr. Ted Cheeseman is a research fellow at the University of California Santa Cruz and co-founder and director of Happywhale, a research collaboration and citizen science platform that uses AI-powered image recognition to track individual whales globally. He completed his PhD in Marine Science at Southern Cross University, Australia, where…
Sunday, Nov 8 -
Vera Kingeekuk Metcalf
TBD
Vera was born and raised in Savoonga (Sivungaq) on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. Since 2002, Vera has been the Director of the Eskimo Walrus Commission (EWC) at Kawerak, Inc. in Nome, Alaska, which represents 19 coastal Alaska Native communities to promote community involvement in research, document Indigenous knowledge, and co-manage…
Orlin Gologergen
TBD
Orlin was born and raised in Nome, Alaska. With strong family ties in Savoonga, Alaska. He is Indigenous, a traditional foods hunter, and has been part of the UAF BLaST program and the BRAIDED project, gaining training in One Health laboratory techniques, data management, and scientific communication. Orlin is the…
Ed Lyman
TBD
Ed Lyman is the Natural Resource Specialist, and Regional Large Whale Entanglement Response Coordinator for the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary. He works closely with NOAA Fisheries under their Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program to better understand large whales and the threats that impact them, especially entanglements.…
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Dr. Michael Castellini
TBD
Dr. Michael Castellini earned his PhD in Marine Biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1981 and joined the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) faculty in 1989. During more than three decades at UAF, he held numerous research and leadership positions, including founding Science Director of the Alaska SeaLife Center…