Aquarium Video Presentations

Dr. Alexander "Sandy" MacDonald, the inventor of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Science on a Sphere, spoke at the Aquarium on May 31, 2011. He is the deputy assistant administrator for Laboratories and Cooperative Institutes for the NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. He also serves as director of the Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.

Garcetti has spent much of his life as an urban photographer, with solo exhibitions at the United Nations in New York, National Building Museum in Washington D.C., and Millennium Art Museum in Beijing, among other institutions and galleries. In 2003 American Photo named Garcetti one of the country’s four master photographers. In addition to his photography, Garcetti has taught at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Dr. Sager is a professor of oceanography at Texas A and M University. His current research efforts are concentrated on geophysical studies of hotspots and ocean plateaus and how they formed and evolved, as well as magnetic anomaly interpretations and the geomagnetic polarity reversal time scale.

Kurtis is a National Association of Underwater Instructors SCUBA instructor, owner of Reef Seekers Dive Company. He is a charter volunteer dive team leader at the Aquarium of the Pacific. Kurtis has been appointed to several state boards that have helped implement the Marine Life Protection Act. He also serves as the forensic consultant for the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office in cases of scuba fatalities.

Ana Pitchon is an assistant professor of anthropology at CSU Dominguez Hills. She specializes in marine human ecosystems and fisheries policy, and has held consultancies in the U.S. with NOAA. She is currently working in collaboration with NOAA on issues related to coastal resource dependency as part of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act National Standard 8 research program.

Goods graduated in 2002 in the graphic design program at Art Center College of Design and currently serves as the visual strategist for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He co-curated a show called "Data + Art: Art and Science in the Age of Information" at the Pasadena Museum of California Art.

Dr. Parker is presently a visiting professor at the Center for Maritime Systems at the Stevens Institute of Technology and is the former chief scientist of the National Ocean Service at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He has a Ph.D. in physical oceanography from The Johns Hopkins University, a master’s degree in physical oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and a bachelor’s degree in biology and physics from Brown University.

Dr. McKinney received his PhD from Texas A&M University, and is the executive director of Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, where he leads a interdisciplinary team that integrates science, policy, and socio-economic expertise to help assure an economically and environmentally sustainable Gulf. Dr. McKinney acts as state lead for the Ecosystem Assessment and Integration Team of the Gulf Alliance Sciences.

Richard Somerville is a theoretical meteorologist and distinguished professor emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. He earned his Ph.D from New York University and has received awards for both his research and his popular book, The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change.

Part of our Climate Change and What it Means to California lecture series. Kathy Kelly, PE, is chief of the Department of Water Resources’ Bay-Delta Office, which plans facilities and implements actions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to improve water quality, water supply reliability, and the ecosystem. She is a civil engineer with experience in planning and hydrologic engineering.