Week Eight: August 10–17, 2024
Every summer Chautauqua Institution welcomes over 100,000 visitors, to celebrate community and prioritize personal growth. Many travel here to relax, renew and recharge on the shores of Chautauqua Lake. Join us for our historic 150 anniversary season and see for yourself why Chautauqua was, and continues to be, a cherished destination. Keep scrolling to explore Week Eight’s Theme: Water: Crisis, Beauty and Necessity: A Week in Partnership with National Geographic.
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Chautauqua Lecture Series
Water: Crisis, Beauty and Necessity
A Week in Partnership with National Geographic
As an elemental force, water’s reach touches everything. We are mostly water — even down to our bones — and the planet we call home is mostly covered by water. It is vital to life, and to our way of life. And yet, water across the globe is increasingly polluted, increasingly scarce and, in a twist of irony, increasingly abundant, with extreme flooding as the most immediately destructive effect of climate change. While water covers two-thirds of Earth’s surface, by 2025 two-thirds of Earth’s population will live in water-scarce areas. As the world seeks out ever-more creative — and desperate — solutions for access to clean water, what global approaches and agreements can be enacted for equitable access to our most precious natural resource? How can we turn the tide before chances of addressing the global water crisis evaporate?
Marine biologist, virtual reality filmmaker and CEO of the non-profit organization The Hydrous, Erika Woolsey opens the week on Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, to discuss ocean science, education, virtual reality and design. On Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, a panel of National Geographic Explorers share their work examining water issues around the world. Marc Bierkens is professor of hydrology in the Department of Physical Geography at Utrecht University, whose current research focuses on understanding the global water cycle and how this is impacted by climate change and human water use. Malin Fezehai is an Eritrean/Swedish New York-based photographer, filmmaker and visual reporter who was among National Geographic Society’s and The Climate Pledge’s 2023 cohort of grant recipients for her work examining human adaptations to sea level rise and the experiences of people permanently living on water. Working across South Asia, environmental photographer, artist and writer Arati Kumar-Rao chronicles anthropogenic changes in landscapes and their fallouts on livelihood and culture — and how drastically depleting groundwater, habitat destruction and land acquisition for industry devastates biodiversity and shrinks common lands, displacing millions and pushing species toward extinction. Advocates of plastic pollution prevention Agustina “Tati” Besada and Rachael Zoe Miller speak Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024, sharing their work in entrepreneurship, science and conservation. Besada is a sustainability entrepreneur and co-founder of Unplastify, a social enterprise on a mission to change the human relationship with plastic, accelerating systemic change to minimize the use of single-use-plastic. Miller is founder of Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean, a nonprofit addressing marine debris through cleanup, education, innovation and solutions-based research. On Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, ice core scientist Alison Criscitiello shares her work focusing on environmental contaminant histories in ice cores from the Canadian high Arctic and the water towers of the Canadian Rockies. To close the week Friday, Aug 16, 2024, photographer and co-director of Andromède Océanologie Laurent Ballesta will discuss the unique underwater explorations that aim to discover the marine world and to unite a large audience around a triple challenge: solving a scientific mystery, carrying out extreme dives, and collecting new and unique images.
2024 Hotel Specials
National Geographic Special
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Saturday Night Special
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Confirmed Lectures
Erika Woolsey
Erika Woolsey is a National Geographic Explorer, visiting scholar at the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab, and chief scientist and CEO of The Hydrous, a non-profit dedicated to translating ocean science into public understanding. As a marine biologist, divemaster and virtual reality filmmaker, she loves bringing people to the ocean, in real life as well as virtually. Her work has taken her to coral reefs around the world, and now her specializations in ocean science, education, virtual reality and design bring her to the Amphitheater stage to open the Chautauqua Lecture Series week on “Water: Crisis, Beauty and Necessity — A Week in Partnership with National Geographic.”
Woolsey is the creator of award-winning ocean extended reality (XR) experiences, including “AR Reef” (an augmented reality experience created in partnership with The Smithsonian, Adobe and The Hydrous); “Immerse” (a 360-degree/3D film); “Explore” (an interactive VR experience developed for research with the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab and the National Science Foundation); and “Expedition Palau” (a shared, synchronized, immersive reality experience). She has authored more than 20 peer-reviewed publications ranging in topics from coral reef ecology to social learning in virtual reality, and in 2023 was named as one of 50 explorers changing the world by The Explorers Club.
Woolsey conducted her PhD research in coral reef ecology on the Great Barrier Reef with James Cook University and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, earned her Masters of Applied Science in Coastal Management from the University of Sydney, and studied biology and art history at Duke University.
August 13 @ 10:45 am Week Eight (August 10–17)
Marc Bierkens, Malin Fezehai & Arati Kumar-Rao
Amphitheater | CHQ Assembly
Marc Bierkens, Malin Fezehai & Arati Kumar-Rao
Three National Geographic Explorers whose work examines water issues across the world come together in conversation on the Amphitheater stage for the Chautauqua Lecture Series and a week on “Water: Crisis, Beauty and Necessity.”
Marc Bierkens is professor of hydrology in the Department of Physical Geography at Utrecht University, whose current research focuses on understanding the global water cycle and how this is impacted by climate change and human water use. To support this work, his group has built a high-resolution global hydrological and water resources model — the results of which are frequently used in public outreach like National Geographic’s World Water Map, and to aid NGOs and companies in water risk assessments through projects like the World Resources Institute Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas.
At Utrecht University, Bierkens served as acting chairman of the Department of Physical Geography from 2009 to 2015, and since June 2021 as Vice Dean of Research for the Faculty of Geosciences. He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and is editor of the journal Water Resources Research. In 2023 he received the Henry Darcy Medal from the European Geosciences Union and the Hydrology Award from the American Geophysical Union. Since 2023, he is also a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Malin Fezehai is an Eritrean/Swedish New York-based photographer, filmmaker and visual reporter who has worked across the Middle East, Africa, Asia and America. In 2023, National Geographic Society and The Climate Pledge announced Fezehai among its latest cohort of grant recipients documenting the global climate crisis. With this grant, Fezehai is examining human adaptations to sea level rise and the experiences of people permanently living on water.
Fezehai’s work focuses on communities of displacement and dislocation around the world. In 2016, she was commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme to photograph survivors of violent extremism across Sub-Saharan Africa, which resulted in her book, SURVIVORS. In 2018, she worked at The New York Times as a visual reporter for the “Surfacing” column.
Fezehai has received a 2015 World Press Photo Award, a Wallis Annenberg Prize, and was named one of the 30 Emerging Photographers to watch in 2015 by Photo District News. Her image depicting a wedding of Eritrean refugees in Israel was the first iPhone photo ever to receive a World Press Photo Award.
Working across South Asia, environmental photographer, artist and writer Arati Kumar-Rao documents environmental degradation that has reached cataclysmic levels. She chronicles anthropogenic changes in landscapes and their fallouts on livelihood and culture — and how drastically depleting groundwater, habitat destruction and land acquisition for industry devastates biodiversity and shrinks common lands, displacing millions and pushing species toward extinction.
Using still and moving images, soundscapes, longform narratives and art, Kumar-Rao has crisscrossed the subcontinent for over a decade, using hard-hitting stories to connect the dots between environmental destruction and the loss of innate resilience in the face of a deepening climate crisis. Her first book, Marginlands: India’s Landscapes on the Brink encapsulates her work thus far on these themes. Marginlands was shortlisted for best first book in the non-fiction category at TataLitLive! Awards 2023, and longlisted for non-fiction at AttaGalatta Bangalore LitFest Awards 2023. Most recently, Kumar-Rao was included as a climate pioneer on the BBC’s 100 Women list for 2023.
Her work has appeared in National Geographic magazine, Emergence magazine, The Guardian, The Hindustan Times, Mint and BBC Outside Source, among other outlets.
August 14 @ 10:45 am Week Eight (August 10–17)
Agustina “Tati” Besada & Rachael Zoe Miller
Amphitheater | CHQ Assembly
Agustina “Tati” Besada & Rachael Zoe Miller
Advocates of plastic pollution prevention and National Geographic Explorers Agustina “Tati” Besada and Rachael Zoe Miller join the Chautauqua Lecture Series and its week in partnership with National Geographic, “Water: Crisis, Beauty and Necessity” to share stories of their work in entrepreneurship, science and conservation.
Agustina “Tati” Besada is a sustainability entrepreneur and advocate of plastic pollution prevention. Besada crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a 36-foot sailboat — twice — to research ocean plastics and study international scalable solutions. She transformed this adventure into action co-founding Unplastify, a social enterprise on a mission to change the human relationship with plastic, accelerating systemic change to minimize the use of single-use-plastic. Based in Latin America, Unplastify works on educational programs with youth, transformative projects with companies, and advocacy for new public policies with governments.
Besada also works with NGOs, governments, and regional platforms to promote responsible production systems, resource efficiency, and circular economy. She previously served as the executive director of Sure We Can, a sustainability hub and recycling center in New York City that employs a community of 500 urban collectors and diverts tons of valuable materials from landfills.
Besada was trained as an industrial designer, received a Master in Science in sustainability management from Columbia University’s Earth Institute, and completed an executive program on entrepreneurship at Columbia Business School. She became a National Geographic Explorer in 2018 and has been an Ashoka Fellow since 2021.
Rachael Zoe Miller is a National Geographic Explorer, inventor and Explorers Club Fellow working to protect the ocean through expedition-based science, conservation and storytelling. She is the founder of Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean, a nonprofit addressing marine debris through cleanup, education, innovation and solutions-based research. She is also a co-inventor of the Cora Ball, the world’s first microfiber-catching laundry ball, and sea life artist for Coraclip, a renewable alternative to wasteful virgin-to-landfill plastic bag clips.
Miller leads teams on expeditions whose results are published in peer-reviewed journals and experiences translated into education programs; recent expeditions include sampling the entire Hudson River for microplastics in the air, water and soil; microplastic sampling from onboard the E/V Nautilus in the Hawaiian Archipelago; and research in the Arctic and Antarctic with Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic as a Visiting Explorer/Scientist.
She and her team have received multiple awards and recognition, including Best VideoRay PR Story for using ROVs to find and remove marine debris, being named an Ocean Exemplar by World Ocean Observatory, and winner of the Most Innovative Idea in Microplastics from Think Beyond Plastic.
Alison Criscitiello
Alison Criscitiello is a National Geographic Explorer, ice core scientist and high-altitude mountaineer who explores the history of sea ice in polar and high-alpine regions using ice core chemistry. Her work also focuses on environmental contaminant histories in ice cores from the Canadian high Arctic and the water towers of the Canadian Rockies. She will discuss her work and experiences of long months living in tents — and the stories ice cores can tell us — as part of the Chautauqua Lecture Series week with National Geographic on “Water: Crisis, Beauty and Necessity.”
Criscitiello is the founder and co-director of Girls on Ice Canada and assistant professor and director of the Canadian Ice Core Lab at University of Alberta. In 2010, she led the first all-women’s ascent of Lingsarmo, a 22,818-foot peak in the Indian Himalaya. As part of Perpetual Planet Expeditions –– a partnership between National Geographic Society and Rolex to support science-based expeditions to explore, study and document change in the planet’s most unique regions –– Criscitiello led two expeditions to Mount Logan, Canada’s highest mountain. In 2021, Criscitiello anchored an all-female team of scientists to install the highest weather station in North America near the mountain’s peak. She returned to Mount Logan in 2022 to successfully retrieve a record-breaking 1,072-foot long ice core that could contain one of the most important climate records on the continent –– including past temperature, nearby sea surface conditions, volcanic ash fallout, and wildfire history –– and will shed light on how climate change impacts even the world’s highest peaks.
Criscitiello has received three American Alpine Club climbing awards, the John Lauchlan and Mugs Stump alpine climbing awards, and she earned the first PhD in glaciology ever conferred by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Laurent Ballesta
Laurent Ballesta is a French photographer, National Geographic Explorer, trained marine biologist and photographer for National Geographic magazine. At Andromède Océanologie, which is dedicated to the study, restoration and valorization of marine ecosystems, Ballesta is co-director and leads the Gombessa Expeditions — underwater explorations that aim to discover the marine world and to unite a large audience around a triple challenge: solving a scientific mystery, carrying out extreme dives, and collecting new and unique images. To close the week on “Water: Crisis, Beauty and Necessity — A Week in Partnership with National Geographic,” Ballesta will discuss and share photographs from these explorations — from the first images of the elusive, ancient deep-sea coelacanth taken by a diver at a depth of 120 meters; to ones of unprecedented dives beneath pack ice and the very first naturalistic images of the Antarctica’s deep-sea ecosystems.
In July 2019, Ballesta achieved a world first by successfully combining the empirical means of off-shore saturation diving with the modern techniques of scuba diving. He and three other divers spent 28 days 100 meters underwater in a system of pressurized units called a bathyal station, exploring the zone between 60 meters and 140 meters underwater along the coast from Marseille to Monaco. Two years later, he repeated the experience for 20 days off the coast of Corsica to uncover the mystery of the giant rings of the Mediterranean, seeking to understand the origin of the unique formation 120 meters under the sea.
Ballesta is a six-time winner of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year, awarded by the National Museum of London. In the past 40 years of the competition, he is the first photographer to receive the Grand Title twice, in 2021 and 2023.
Interfaith Lecture Series
Water: A Metaphor for Life
Water is essential to all life, sustaining and necessary for any growth, movement, or thriving. We are nurtured in the water of the womb, and we rely on water every day of our lives to survive. It is no surprise that this results in a powerful association with the holy — water conveys purity, mediates transitions, and serves to remind us of the movement of spirit through our lives. From the Ganges to the Jordan, flowing water plays an important part in many religious traditions, and rituals of purification and offering involving water are part of many practices. How do we understand this essential element, in practice and as a primary metaphor for life?
Confirmed Lectures
Gopal Patel
Gopal D. Patel is Co-Founder and Director of FutureFaith, a new faith-based think tank that aims to bring wisdom and insights from faith and spirituality to address global challenges. Born and raised in England, after graduating university, Gopal D. Patel studied at Hindu ashrams in India and England for two years, exploring the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita and applying them to contemporary concerns. Two decades later and he’s still asking himself the same question: How are the wisdom, values, and knowledge of faith traditions and spirituality (including his own) relevant to the world and its challenges?
Patel is bridging the gap between the world of faith and spirituality and the secular world of technocrats and public policy. He helps people and institutions understand the significant contribution of faith-based groups by translating and applying religious teachings and ideas into policy and action that contribute to the common good. For the last decade, he has advised global interfaith and environmental initiatives and worked for the inclusion of faith voices in local and international policy. His roles and achievements include: Co-convener, Faiths for Biodiversity (2020 – Present), Co-founder and Director, Bhumi Global (previously Bhumi Project) (2010 – 2024), Lead author, World Economic Forum Faith in Action Report (2023), Co-chair, UN Multi-faith Advisory Council (2020 – 2024), Co-chair, Advisory Board to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2023 – Present), Advisor, WWF International, Beliefs and Values Initiative (2020 – 2024), and giving a TED Talk on “The unexpected way spirituality connects to climate change.”
Gopal believes in harnessing the enduring wisdom of faith traditions to support innovative approaches to global problems and building resilience for social change work. He shares his experiences as a keynote speaker and presenter and convenes spaces for faith and secular groups to engage constructively on issues of common concern.
Adriana Nieto
Adriana Pilar Nieto is Professor of Chicana/o/a/x Studies and currently serving as chair of the Department of Chicana/o/a/x Studies at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Nieto has been faculty at MSU Denver for twenty years. She earned her PhD in Religious and Theological Studies from the Joint Doctoral Program and the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology. Nieto’s teaching and research interests include Latina and indigenous women’s spiritualities and practices; post-partum and mental health among Chicanas in early 20th Century New Mexico; women of color feminisms; Chicana Protestants in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands; oral history; and acequia history, culture and politics in southern Colorado and New Mexico.
Nieto serves on the steering committee of the Hispanic Theological Initiative and her publications include “Running the Gauntlet: Francisco ‘Kiko’ Martinez and the Colorado Martyrs” in Enduring Legacies: Ethnic Histories and Cultures of Colorado, CU Press (2011); “Borderlands Religions” in Encyclopedia on Hispanic American Religious Cultures ABC-CLIO Press (2021); co-authored with M. Makley, “A Brief History of Water Interdependencies the Colorado Plateau” in A Journal of World Affairs by the Foreign Policy Research Institute, (2021). Co-author and editor of textbook Introduction to Chicana and Chicano Studies: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Colorado/New Mexico Region, Kendall Hunt Publishing Company (2019).
Elyse Goldstein
Rabbi Dr. Elyse Goldstein is the founding Rabbi of City Shul, a Reform congregation in downtown Toronto she started in 2011. She broke the “stained glass ceiling” right after her ordination upon her arrival to Toronto in 1983, as the only female Rabbi in all of Canada. After her first position as Assistant Rabbi at Canada’s largest synagogue of 5,000 families (Holy Blossom Temple) she founded Kolel: The Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning, for which she was awarded the internationally recognized Covenant Award for Exceptional Jewish Educators in 2005.
She was the first woman to be elected as president of the interdenominational Toronto Board of Rabbis and was one of seven women featured in the Canadian National Film Board documentary, “Half the Kingdom.” Her first book, ReVisions: Seeing Torah through a Feminist Lens, won the Canadian National Jewish Book Awards in the field of Bible. Her second and third books, The Women’s Torah Commentary, and The Women’s Haftarah Commentary were the first Bible commentaries in history written by female Rabbis. Her fourth book, New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future won finalist in The National Jewish Book Awards. She is a blogger for The Times of Israel and HuffPost.
She graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Brandeis University in 1978, earning her Master’s Degree from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1981, and receiving their Doctor of Divinity, honoris causis in 2008. In 2013 she was named one of America’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis by The Forward and in May 2017 she was awarded Doctor of Laws honoris causis from Ryerson University in recognition of her path-breaking work in Canada.
Hussein A. Amery
Dr. Hussein A. Amery is a professor of water politics and policy at Colorado School of Mines. He was the Chair of the Department of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, and served as the Associate Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Faculty. His academic expertise is in water and food security in the Middle East, with a focus on the Arab Gulf states. He also specializes in Islamic perspectives on water management, and in trans-boundary water politics especially along the Litani, Jordan, Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates rivers. His books are Arab Water Security: Threats and Opportunities in the Gulf States (Cambridge University Press), and Water in the Middle East: A Geography of Peace (Texas University Press; Co-edited). His academic contributions were recognized by his selection as Fellow by the International Water Resources Association. Dr. Amery had been a consultant to US government agencies, International Development and Research Center (Canada), and to American water engineering firms.
Erin Huber Rosen
Erin Huber Rosen is a rural water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) expert, social entrepreneur, author, documentarian, clean water advocate, executive director and founder of the non-profit, Drink Local Drink Tap. Since 1998, she has worked in civic engagement, primarily with underserved communities, and has developed extensive environmental stewardship, leadership, and advocacy experience. In 2011, she began her international development expertise in Uganda focusing on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) crisis.
Huber has been recognized with numerous accolades by Cleveland-area organizations, media, and universities. Huber also co-directed and produced three documentaries and is the lead author of Make Waves 4 Change, a book designed to inspire the next generation of civic leaders. She advocates for equitable water and sanitation locally (USA) and globally, and has led 15 years of community beach cleanups in Cleveland. She has created robust educational programming to prevent plastic waste and increase water stewardship in the US, and implements WASH projects in East Africa in rural Uganda. She currently serves on the US Global Leadership Coalition Advisory Board for the State of Ohio, the Greater Cleveland Water Equity Partners Board, and is an active member of the Uganda Water and Sanitation Network and Sanitation and Water for All.
Weekly Chaplain
Announcement coming soon!
Explore Performing and Visual Arts
The arts can sometimes bridge differences and illuminate perspectives as no other method can. Artistic expressions at Chautauqua — including professional and pre-professional offerings in classical and contemporary music, theater, opera, dance, visual arts and literary arts — aim to inspire, educate, entertain and engage a diverse and growing audience.
Places to Stay
If you love the events you see in Week Eight, ensure you have accommodations. Space on the ground is limited, and accommodations go fast find reservations at the Hotel or Private Accommodations.
Dining & Shopping
Make your Chautauqua experience memorable! Share a delicious meal at one of our many restaurants. Or take piece of Chautauqua home with you from our unique shops.