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Wednesday, February 11, 2026 - Gainesville, FLSpeaker: Dr. Nancy Knowlton
Conservation Bright Spots: Making a Difference for Nature, Climate and People
The University of Florida Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience presents the 2026 Whitney Lecture on Wednesday, February 11, 2026 in Gainesville, Florida with the program titled “Conservation Bright Spots: Making a Difference for Nature, Climate and People”. Dr. Nancy Knowlton, Sant Chair Emerita at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, will be the speaker.
12:50 - 1:50 p.m. - Dr. Nancy Knowlton Lecture
2:00 - 4:00 p.m. - Poster Session and Refreshments
To present your poster at this event, please email [email protected] with your name, title and abstract. Poster information submission deadline January 21, 2026.
Free and open to the public.
Lecture RSVPs encouraged - please email [email protected]
Lecture Zoom Option: https://ufl.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_m__Wl830SFytugBv1hdPrw
Organized by: UF Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, UF Center for Coastal Solutions, and the UF Biodiversity Institute
About the Lecture: Scientific journals, news reports and social media are filled with reports of extinctions, climate catastrophes, and the human suffering that ensues from destabilizing the natural systems that sustain life on this planet. With so much focus on doom and gloom, it is easy to give up hope, making further calamities ever more likely. Yet the reality of where we find ourselves today is more complex.
Despite the grim numbers overall, there are bright spots: species saved, land- and seascapes protected and restored, and a now unstoppable renewable energy revolution. Moreover, the benefits for people are becoming clearer, speeding progress and making it more durable. Examples from around the world offer important lessons for the future, as we navigate the challenges of the Anthropocene.
Dr. Nancy Knowlton is a distinguished author, public speaker, marine scientist and conservation biologist who has dived on coral reefs around the world. Her discovery of why some corals are more sensitive to high temperatures continues to shape efforts to protect reefs from the effects of global warming. Dr. Knowlton’s many honors include election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the International Coral Reef Society’s Darwin Medal. She currently serves on the global Board of Directors of The Nature Conservancy.
Dr. Knowlton spent much of her career at the Smithsonian, first at the Tropical Research Institute in Panama and then at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. She was also a professor at Yale and at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, where she founded the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation. Her pioneering recognition of the limits of “doom and gloom” messaging led to the “Beyond the Obituaries” symposia, the #OceanOptimism Twitter campaign, and the Smithsonian’s Earth Optimism Summits. These initiatives helped shift the focus towards solutions and successes across the global conservation community, a goal that she continues to pursue in her writings, talks, and on social media (@nancyknowlton.bsky.social).
The Whitney Lecture started in the late 1990’s with generous endowed support from Dr. Joram Piatigorsky, an esteemed research scientist and past scientific adviser at Whitney. The series is designed to bring preeminent scientists to the Whitney Lab and the University of Florida’s main campus to help build on our strength in marine biomedical research and share this with our main campus scientific community.
More Information: https://www.whitney.ufl.edu/news--events/the-whitney-lecture-2026/
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
University of Florida Reitz Union, Rion Ballroom 686 Museum Road, Gainesville, FL, United States
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