SCCS-NY 2026 Plenaries
Sensory ecology as a window into conservation
Keynote Speaker: Jesse R. Barber, Curator of Conservation Science, Invertebrate Zoology, and Jaffe Chief Conservation Scientist, American Museum of Natural History
Jesse Barber’s research lens is to look through fundamental ecological and evolutionary theory toward applied solutions. Understanding the worlds other animals perceive can provide critical insight into ecology, evolution, and conservation. His research program on sensory ecology and sensory pollution focuses on understanding how information flow structures animal behavior, ecology, and evolution. Dr. Barber has two primary thrusts: 1) the ecological consequences of loud and bright sensory environments for animals and 2) the sensory ecology of bat-moth interactions.
In this keynote talk, Sensory Ecology as a Window into Conservation, he will discuss how looking through the eyes and ears of wildlife can help us quantify the costs of noise and light pollution for animals and how to find solutions to increase coexistence with people.
Artist-in-Residence: Melanie Zurba
Melanie Zurba is an artist and Associate Professor with the School for Resource and Environmental Studies at Dalhousie University (Canada). Her artistic practice is centred around sculpture and installation and connects to themes such as nature sovereignty and human connection with the more-than-human world. Her practice is often in close dialogue with her academic work in community-engaged environmental management and environmental humanities.
Melanie will guide conference participants in a participatory art installation titled “Currents”, which honours multiple ways of knowing and invites conference attendees to co-create a landscape reflecting what conservation looks like when we make room for hope, relationship, and imagination alongside science.
A hand-painted river will be a shared canvas for reflection where participants will interact by inscribing messages for the future of biodiversity conservation onto handmade papers that are then folded into small paper boats and set adrift on the river. Others will shape clay into figures of plants, animals, or other presences that will become "conservation witnesses” that sit along the banks of the river. On the final day of the conference, the messages will be revealed and collaged alongside the water making a landscape that holds the river and the witnesses.
Stay tuned for more info about our panel!
