Vanderbilt Museum hosts Ecology and Climate Change lecture April 14

As part of its Ecology and Climate Change lecture series, the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum, 180 Little Neck Road, Centerport will welcome Stony Brook University’s Heather Lynch for a presentation titled Mapping Penguins with Satellites, Drones and Other Technologies in the Charles and Helen Reichert Planetarium on April 14 at 7 p.m.

In Mapping Penguins, with Satellites, Drones, and Other Technologies, Professor Lynch will share insights from her innovative research into the population dynamics of penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula. To better understand rises and falls in this population due to climate change, tourism, and fishing, Lynch marries traditional field work with a range of technologically sophisticated methods including satellite remote sensing, drone imaging, and advanced computational models.

“Penguin populations have been changing rapidly over the last 40 years,” says Lynch. “But understanding why those changes have occurred and what we might expect for the future is a surprisingly difficult challenge. [In this lecture,] I’ll discuss the threats facing Antarctic penguins and how scientists are bringing together new technology, artificial intelligence, and advanced predictive modeling to help guide policymakers in their work to protect one of the world’s last remaining wildernesses.”

Dr. Heather J. Lynch is the Institute for Advanced Computational Sciences Endowed Chair for Ecology & Evolution at Stony Brook University. She earned a B.A. in Physics from Princeton University, an M.A. in Physics from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in Organismal and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard. She is also a National Geographic Explorer and past winner of the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists.

Join Lynch as she shares her insight and research. $6 per person, members free. To register, visit www.vanderbiltmuseum.org.