Dr. Sylvia Earle will speak after the film Acid Test. Called "Her Deepness" by the New Yorker and the New York Times, "Living Legend" by the Library of Congress and "Hero for the Planet" by Time, Dr. Earle is an oceanographer, explorer, author and lecturer with a deep commitment to research through personal exploration.   Earle's work has been at the frontier of deep ocean exploration for four decades. Earle has led more than 50 expeditions worldwide involving more than 6,000 hours underwater.  In 1979, Sylvia Earle walked untethered on the sea floor at a lower depth than any other woman before or since. In the 1980s she started the companies Deep Ocean Engineering and Deep Ocean Technologies with engineer Graham Hawkes to design and build undersea vehicles that allow scientists to work at previously inaccessible depths. In the early 1990s, Dr. Earle served as Chief Scientist of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. At present she is an explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society.

Bob Edwards, the host of “The Bob Edwards Show” on Sirius XM Radio and “Bob Edwards Weekend,” distributed to public radio stations by Public Radio International (PRI), will introduce the film Harvest of Shame and hold a book signing for his book, Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism, after the film. Before joining Sirius XM in 2004, Edwards hosted National Public Radio’s (NPR) “Morning Edition” for 24-and-a-half years, attracting more than 13 million listeners weekly. He joined NPR in 1974 and was co-host of NPR’s evening news magazine, “All Things Considered,” until 1979 when he helped launch “Morning Edition.”

Larry Engel will speak after his film Potato Heads.  Engel is a producer, writer, director, and cinematographer with nearly 30 years of documentary filmmaking experience spanning all seven continents. He was an adjunct professor of film at Columbia University's film division in the School of the Arts, where he had taught since 1976.  In 2003, he received a Columbia University Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching. He helped establish Panasonic Kid Witness News, a world-wide outreach program that empowers disadvantaged youth to use new technology to explore their world. Larry Engel has been honored with a host of nominations and awards, including a Daytime Emmy for Best Cinematography, a AAAS-Westinghouse Science Journalism Award for excellence in science writing for television, and the Mountain Spirit award from Mountainfilm in Telluride.

Ed Farley will speak after the film Who Killed Crassostrea virginica: The Fall and Rise of the Chesapeake Bay Oysters. In the Fall of 1971, Captain Farley sailed south from New England and discovered the Eastern Shore with its active fleet of working skipjacks.  He has been making his livelihood from sailing and wooden boat building ever since. He purchased his first vessel in 1975, and after extensive rebuilding, started utilizing the skipjack year round by oystering from November through March and for carrying charters during the warm months. In 1985, Capt. Ed helped to develop and operate a sailing skipjack environmental educational program with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and over the next seven years carried in excess of 14,000 school children. With a life long interest in outdoor, environmental, and experiential education, Capt. Ed, through Ecotourism and oystering, approaches the 21st century with a commitment to keeping the heritage of the working skipjack alive.

Michael W. Fincham will speak after his film Who Killed Crassostrea virginica: The Fall and Rise of Chesapeake Bay Oysters.  Fincham is a science writer and a documentary producer who focuses on the environment, science, social justice and sports. He currently develops film and television projects through the University of Maryland Sea Grant College. A native Washingtonian, he graduated from Gonzaga High School and studied literature, philosophy, the history of science and film at the University of Maryland, the Institute of European Studies, the University of Vienna and the University of Iowa.

Angela Flynn will speak after the film Full Signal.  Flynn is a community organizer who had an environmental awakening in 1995, after which she helped to build the Green Party and worked on organic farms.  In 2007, Flynn joined a group of activists working on the wireless emissions issue. The group formalized their name into the Wireless Radiation Alert Network (WRAN) and was able to get the county and city of Santa Cruz to enact cell tower setbacks of 1,000 feet from public middle schools. After two years of living next to cell phone antennas Angela decided that the radio frequency radiation (RFR) exposure from the antennas was taking too much of a toll on her health and moved to the Washington, DC area in order to be better positioned to work on the federal level.  Flynn is the author of the report "Cell Towers and Wireless Communications - Living with Radiofrequency Radiation"

Josh Fox is the director and writer of GasLand. He will speak after his film screens at the Carnegie Institution for Science. Raised in Milanville, PA and New York City, his work is committed to socially conscious themes and subjects. Fox is the founder and Artistic Director of International WOW Company, a film and theater company that works closely with actors and non-actors from diverse cultural backgrounds from around the world. His company creates new work that addresses social and political crises in our nation and across the globe.   

Pearl Fryar, star of the film, A Man Named Pearl, will speak after the screening on March 22.  Fryar began work on his three-acre garden in 1984 in an effort to win "Yard of the Month" for his home on the outskirts of Bishopville, SC. Today, the well-manicured, sculptural plant forms that comprise Fryar's living vision of peace, love and goodwill often begin as salvaged seedlings from a local nursery. Recognized by art and botanical enthusiasts, the visually whimsical garden is maintained year-round by Fryar for visitors from around the world. The Friends of Pearl Fryar's Topiary Garden has been organized to help care for and preserve the garden and assist Pearl as he educates and inspires others to achieve their creative potential.

Phylis Geller will speak after her film Coal Country.  She is president of Norman Star Media, a media production and consulting company in Washington, DC. Geller has been a media executive and producer for thirty years. She has overseen programs in all genres, including history, science, drama, performance and children's programs. Projects under her supervision have won the most prestigious awards in broadcasting. Ms. Geller is a graduate of Smith College. She is married to Frederick Pollack, poet and adjunct professor at George Washington University.

John Gerrard will lecture about his work on March 18 at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Born in Dublin in 1974, John Gerrard received a BFA from The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford University. During this time he made his first experiments with 3D scanning as a form of sculptural photography. He undertook postgraduate studies at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago and Trinity College, Dublin, and in 2002 was awarded a Pépinières Residency at Ars Electronica, Linz, where he developed his first works in Realtime 3D. In 2006, the artist discovered a single archival image of the North American Dust Bowl which has informed much of his research since. The first of the works to be produced in artistic response, titled Dust Storm (Dalhart, Texas) 2007, was presented in the group exhibition Equal, That Is, To the Real Itself, curated by Linda Norden at Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, in 2007. Recent solo presentations of Gerrard’s work include Oil Stick Work at Simon Preston Gallery, New York (2009).  In June 2009 he began a guest residency at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam.

Roger Grange is one of three co-producers, directors, and writers speaking after their film Megamall.  Roger is a cinematographer and videographer for documentary and dramatic film.  Over the past twenty years, he has photographed an incredible variety of subjects all over the world.  In 1998, he received an Earthwatch Film Award for directing and cinematography on The Quiet Revolution: Kerala, India, for PBS.

Dr. Brian Gratwicke will speak after the film Frogs: The Thin Green Line.  Dr. Gratwicke is an international conservation biologist with experience in aquatic, marine and terrestrial ecology. He grew up in Africa and earned his Bachelor’s degree in zoology and his Masters degree in aquatic ecology from the University of Zimbabwe. In 2004, he was awarded his Doctoral degree in Tropical Ecology from Oxford University, as one of two Rhodes Scholars from Zimbabwe. At that time he founded a web-based conservation organization focusing on the deteriorating situation for wildlife in Zimbabwe and began working in Washington, DC for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. At the foundation he worked as the assistant director of Save The Tiger Fund and was the foundation’s representative on the science committee of the National Fish Habitat Initiative.
Dr. Gratwicke is currently a member of the Society for Conservation Biology, and runs a unique photography group focusing on natural history in Washington DC at www.dcnature.com.

Rachel Grob will speak on a panel after the film When Learning Comes Naturally.  Grob is Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, Director of the Child Development Institute, and Health Advocacy Program faculty member at Sarah Lawrence College. She holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University, a M.A. in Health Advocacy from Sarah Lawrence College, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the CUNY Graduate Center. Her work at Sarah Lawrence includes teaching in the graduate programs, development of new programs and curricula, and research. Prior to joining Sarah Lawrence full-time in 2003, she worked for ten years in the public and then in the private sectors doing community coalition building, public health advocacy, policy analysis, and health and human service program management. She has worked with a variety of private foundations -- as a consultant, grant recipient, and/or principal investigator -- including the Annie Casey Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Surdna Foundation.