Welcome refreshments and begin taking seats.

Introduction by Dr. Raymond Barclay, MICA's Senior Vice President - Enrollment Strategy, Innovation, and Partnerships

Exclusive pre-theatrical release film screening of NAWI: Dear Future Me.

Kevin Schmutzler was born in Germany, but has spent most of his filmmaking career on international ground. Often mistaken for his brother and co-director Tobias Schmutzler, Kevin forms one half of the Munich-based directing duo focused on cinematic stories that drive social impact.

Assistant Professor Marine Frouin, a specialist in geochronology and luminescence dating, joined Stony Brook University in Spring 2020. By 2021, in association with Stony Brook University’s Department of Geosciences and the Turkana Basin Institute (TBI), she had built and establish the new Luminescence Dating Research Laboratory, currently the only one of its kind on the U.S. East Coast.

Tara Smiley, assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Ecology and Evolution, is an evolutionary ecologist interested in how climate and landscape history shape the diversity, biogeography, and ecological structure of mammalian faunas across spatio-temporal scales. She tests hypotheses about how changes in climate, tectonic activity, topographic complexity, and habitat heterogeneity impact communities and ecological processes at local scales and govern diversity at regional scales.

Bob Raynolds is a research associate at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and an adjunct faculty member in the geophysics department at Colorado School of Mines. He has worked in the Rift Valley in East Africa since the 1970’s and sits on the International Advisory Board of the Turkana Basin Institute (TBI).

Dr. Weisen Shen is an Assistant Professor of Geophysics at the Department of Geosciences, Stony Brook University. His research interests are seismic tomography and the seismic, thermal, and compositional structure of the earth’s lithosphere.

Desmond DeLanty has a Bachelor of Architecture and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), a Master of Architecture and a PhD dissertation from the China Academy of Art (CAA). He is the founding principal of Hangzhou Art & Design Collaborative, based in Hangzhou, China, and cofounding principal of EcoDepot, based on Long Island in New York.

Panel discussion focusing on the actionable and immediate opportunities that the intersection of scientific and creative disciplines can foster in the Turkana Basin.

Presentation of A Lake in A Desert Award of $1,000.

Reception with refreshments and final viewing of A Lake in A Desert. Topics touched on during the panel discussion can be explored further through casual conversations with scientists, faculty, and students.