John Walsh will lecture on March 25 about the evolution of the sculpture garden at Dumbarton Oaks.  He is Director Emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Museum, where he served as Director from 1983 to 2000.  An art historian who specializes in Dutch 17th-century paintings, Walsh was educated at Yale, Columbia and the University of Leyden, where he was a Fulbright Fellow. He did curatorial work at the Frick Collection, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he was Curator in the Department of European Paintings, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where he was Curator of Paintings. He is the author of many articles in his field of specialization and two recent books, Jan Steen, The Drawing Lesson and The J. Paul Getty Museum and Its Collections: A Museum for the New Century. He has taught at Columbia and Harvard and currently teaches at Yale.

Bart Walter is an artist and sculptor and will be present for a discussion after the film A Journey Shared.  He was born in Baltimore and received his Bachelor of Arts from Hiram College in Ohio.  Bart Walter prefers to sculpt his subjects in the wild. About his art, he says, "My art evolves from a passion for all living things. I strive to capture the essence of a living being; to explore some kernel of truth that may have gone unnoticed and to depict an otherwise elusive moment in time.”

Lynn Walter will speak after her film A Journey Shared: The Art of Bart Walter. Lynn Walter graduated from Hiram College and received a Masters Degree in Biology from the College of William and Mary. She and her husband Bart have camped for months in the African bush with their family as he sketches and sculpts his subjects. An amateur photographer, Lynn began documenting the family’s experiences in Kenya on video in order to capture footage for A Journey Shared: The Art of Bart Walter. Lynn’s digital photography has been seen in various Maryland art venues such as the Carroll County Arts Council Gallery, Gallery 99 and The Scott Gallery as well as numerous studio publications. As a trained biologist and a life partner of an artist, Lynn is in a unique position to capture candid images of her husband as he works both in the field and in the studio.  They live in Westminster Maryland on twenty acres they maintain as a wildlife sanctuary.

Laura Waters Hinson is a 2008 Student Academy Awards gold winner for her film As We Forgive. She will speak on a panel at American University on March 24.  Hinson is a filmmaker and photographer based in Washington, D.C. She is the founder of Image Bearer Pictures and recently launched the Living Bricks Campaign, a multi-media viewer project to support reconciliation efforts in Rwanda. Laura received a Master of Fine Arts degree in filmmaking from American University and has worked in the past as the director of creative arts at an Anglican church, as a development coordinator for the Discovery Health Channel, and as a research assistant for MSNBC host Chris Matthews. Laura also shoots freelance photography and is married to Tommy. They live in a row house on Capitol Hill.

Hal and Marilyn Weiner will speak after their work-in-progress film Plan B: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.  Through their Washington, DC production company Screenscope, Marilyn and Hal Weiner have produced, written, and directed over 225 documentaries and four public television series (Journey To Planet Earth, Women At Work, Faces Of Man and The World Of Cooking).  They have also produced three feature films (Family Business, The Imagemaker, and K2). The Weiners have won Emmy Awards for The Earth Summit Pledge, commissioned by the United Nations to open the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and Streets of Sorrow, an NBC documentary about a support group formed to help people cope with the violent death of a family member.  They are recipients of the National Academy of Television Arts and Science's Silver Circle Award for "outstanding contributions to the television industry."  Marilyn Weiner is the winner of Women-In-Film's "Women of Vision Award" for creative excellence.  In a contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, Hal Weiner won first prize at the 18th annual Larry Neal Writers' Competition for his dramatic screenplay, The Jerusalem Syndrome.  Mr. Weiner also won first prize in the Washington DC Screenwriting Competition for his feature film script Shadows.  The Weiners have also won over 130 top international awards, including 39 CINE Golden Eagles.  Their films have been shot on location in more than 30 countries on five continents, translated into numerous languages and broadcast throughout the world.

Patricia White will speak on a panel after the film Division Street. White began Defenders’ Habitat & Highways Campaign in 2000 which seeks to reduce the impact of roads and highways on wildlife and encourage state and local authorities to incorporate wildlife conservation into transportation and community planning. She represents Defenders as a sponsor and steering committee member on the International Conference for Ecology and Transportation and is currently working to launch the TransWild Alliance. In addition, she is also a founding member of TRB Committee on Ecology and Transportation, and a board member of Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project. White received her Bachelor’s degree from Central Michigan University and a Masters degree in Environment & Resource Policy from the George Washington University. In 2004 Trisha authored the report Second Nature: Improving Transportation Without Putting Nature Second.

Douglas F. Williamson will speak after his film Not a Distant Beast.  Williamson hails from New York City but has spent most of the past fifteen years living, working, and studying abroad. He presently lives in Washington, DC where he works for the US EPA. Douglas has been producing environmental films independently for the past several years and has won several awards and selections from festivals and competitions. He hopes to be able to continue to produce meaningful and compelling films that promote sustainable development and environmental conservation while working within the international environmental development field

Ann Yonkers will speak after the film Fresh. Yonkers is the co-founder of FreshFarm Markets and operates Pot Pie Farm on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. She and farm manager Carol Bean operate on a small-scale using organic practices. The growing area consists of a market garden of 1/4 acre, numerous cutting flowerbeds, a herb garden and three prolific fig trees. There are 150 hens on two acres of pasture formerly called 'the field of dreams.' Pot Pie Farm sells seasonal vegetables, garlic, onions, herbs and cut flowers at the St. Michaels FreshFarm Market. Pot Pie eggs are prized by local chefs and home cooks.