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Sylvia Earle, former NOAA science chief, to speak at UGA oil spill symposium

Athens, Ga. – Internationally recognized oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle will deliver a lecture titled “The World’s Ocean, the World’s Future” Tuesday, Jan. 25 at 2 p.m. in the University of Georgia Chapel.

Following the lecture, Earle will sign copies of her latest book, The World is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean’s Are One, which will be available for purchase.

The lecture and book signing will kick off the three-day UGA/Georgia Sea Grant Oil Spill Symposium, “Building Bridges in Crisis.” On Wednesday, Jan. 26, a series of panel discussions and a roundtable discussion will bring leaders involved in Gulf response efforts together with the goal of improving information flow among stakeholders. Speakers include Justin Gillis,New York Times reporter; Ray Jakubczak, BP Deepwater Horizon Florida Team representative; Richard Harris, National Public Radio reporter; Samantha Joye, UGA professor of marine sciences; and Steve Murawski, former NOAA director of scientific programs and chief science adviser.

Similar to the Earle lecture, the Jan. 26 events are free and open to the public, although registration at http://oilspill.uga.edu is recommended. On Jan. 27, panelists will meet in a closed session to develop a white paper that will detail the lessons learned from the symposium.

Earle has been called “her deepness” by The New Yorker and The New York Times and “living legend” by the Library of Congress. She served as chief scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and is executive director for several corporate and nonprofit organizations, including the Aspen Institute, the Conservation Fund, American Rivers, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, National Marine Sanctuary Foundation and Ocean Conservancy.

Earle has authored more than 150 publications, lectured in more than 60 countries and appeared in hundreds of television productions. She is the author of many books on the ocean, including Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans andOcean: An Illustrated Atlas, with Linda K. Glover.

To learn more about the symposium or to register, see http://oilspill.uga.edu.