Lecture Series History: 2025
In 2025, the Natural History Museum of Utah's annual Lecture Series explored the water that shapes our planet and connects all living things with a theme of Planet Water: Exploring a Vital Resource. Read on to learn more about the theme and speakers.
About the 2025 Lecture Series
Water sustains life, drives exploration, inspires wonder, and holds the key to understanding Earth's past, present, and future. In 2025 our speaker lineup featured a vanguard of explorers and researchers studying water in its many forms on our world and beyond—from the depths of the ocean to the shallows of the Great Salt Lake, and from desert oases to the frozen waters of distant planets.
The 2025 Lecture Series theme was inspired by the Museum’s special exhibition, Orcas: Our Shared Future, and connected the dots between marine life, global water systems, and humanity's future.
2025 Speakers
Jill Heinerth
Explorations in Excellence
More people have walked on the moon than have been to the places Jill Heinerth has explored right here on earth. Instead of following maps, she has blazed a trail into the planet exploring lava tubes beneath the ocean floor, submerged caves inside icebergs, and the deepest recesses of the world’s oceans.
At the 2025 Lecture Series, Heinerth’s dynamic multimedia presentation inspired our audience to reach beyond their limitations, challenge the unknown, and overcome their fears. She shared remarkable experiences and lessons learned in the deadly arena of extreme underwater exploration and adventure filmmaking, applying her practical knowledge to lessons on risk management, discovery learning, failure, and collaboration strategies.
Susan Casey
Uncovering the Ocean's Secrets
For two decades (and counting), Susan Casey has embedded with marine scientists as
they endeavor to solve the ocean’s many mysteries. Is the giant squid a ferocious
predator or a shy opportunist? What is it like at the bottom of the Mariana Trench? Why
are ancient marine microbes the source of our next-generation medicines? Did life begin
at a deep-sea hydrothermal vent? In her 2025 Lecture Series talk, Casey unveiled the latest discoveries and
the technologies making them possible—and explained why a deeper understanding of
the undersea world is essential if we hope to thrive in the world above.
Portrait of Aomawa Shields, Ph. D. Steven Meckler
Aomawa Shields
The Search for Life Beyond Earth
“Are we alone in the universe?” Dr. Aomawa Shields searches for clues of another planet where life might exist. Drawing from her background in astrobiology, she models the possible climates of distant exoplanets. In her fascinating Lecture Series talk, she brought our audience into her research process, and showed how she uses computer-generated climate models to explore contradictions and to calculate the kind of atmosphere a planet would need to have a suitable climate for water and life.
Waters in the West Panel
Featuring local scientists and experts, the panel explored the future of the water in the Wasatch Front, the Great Salt Lake, annual snow pack, and the Colorado River—all vital ecosystems facing record-low water levels and ecological strain. Through a conversation moderated by NHMU's Executive Director Dr. Jason Cryan, the speakers gave the audience a breadth of perspectives, information, and stories to consider as they think about our collective future.
Panelists
- Seth Arens, Research Integration Specialist for Western Water Assessment
- Zachary Frankel, Executive Director, Utah Rivers Council
- Bonnie K. Baxter, Ph.D., Director, Great Salt Lake Institute
2025 Lecture Series Sponsors
Founding Underwriter
R. Harold Burton Foundation
Underwriter
Cultural Vision Fund
Gold Sponsors
Karen & Ken Buchi
Curt and Mary Crowther
M Lazy M Foundation
Rio Tinto Kennecott
Silver Sponsors
The DiFiore Family Foundation
Diana George
Paula Swaner Sargetakis and Joe Sargetakis | Frog Bench Farms
The Wolf Clark Foundation