Please join the National Museum of Natural History on the rescheduled date of Monday, May 5, 2025, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
International Day of Women and Girls in Science Events
Symposium, 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. in the Baird Auditorium, Ground Floor, Hybrid Event*
The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is celebrating the International Day of Women and Girls in Science on May 5, 2025, with a symposium from 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. in the Baird Auditorium, and also being streamed online, and family friendly activities in the museum suited for learners of all ages from 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Symposium Agenda
Focusing on the Smithsonian’s Life on a Sustainable Planet and Mysteries of the Universe initiatives, the symposium will feature presentations from Smithsonian scientists who work on topics ranging from outer space to the deepest ocean and everything in between, as well as an evening networking reception. We will hear from experts who are early in their career as well as world renowned career scientists. Our final session will focus on how we communicate Smithsonian research to broad audiences. Presentation sessions will be followed by a moderated discussion, exploring our presenters' individual career journeys.
Theme 2: Life on a Sustainable Planet — Terrestrial
1:25 p.m. Jun Wen, National Museum of Natural History
1:45 p.m. Liz Cottrell, National Museum of Natural History
2:05 p.m. Kay Behrensmeyer, National Museum of Natural History
Theme 3: Mysteries of the Universe
2:25 p.m. Jennifer Whitten, National Air and Space Museum
2:45 p.m. Cecilia Garraffo, Harvard and Smithsonian
3:05 p.m. Cari Corrigan, National Museum of Natural History
Program Break – 3:25 p.m. – 4:10 p.m.
Program will resume at 4:10 p.m.
Theme 4: Communicating Smithsonian Research
4:10 p.m. Alison Cawood, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
4:35 p.m. Jennifer Collins, National Museum of Natural History
Expert Panel
4:55 p.m. Moderated by Monique Chism, Office of the Under Secretary for Education, Smithsonian Institution Panelists: Jennifer Whitten, Kay Behrensmeyer, Amy Freestone, Jessica Zehnpfennig, and Alison Cawood
Closing Remarks
5:50 p.m. Rebecca Johnson, CW Whitney Associate Director for Science and Chief Scientist, National Museum of Natural History
Ellen Stofan, Under Secretary for Science and Research
Ellen Stofan is the Under Secretary for Science and Research at the Smithsonian. She oversees its science research centers and the National Air and Space Museum, National Museum of Natural History, and the National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. Her focus is on the Smithsonian’s “Our Shared Future: Life on a Sustainable Planet” initiative and collective research, especially in areas of biodiversity, climate change, global health, sustainable communities and environmental justice. Previously, Stofan was the John and Adrienne Mars Director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum (2018–2021) where she was the first woman to hold that position. Under her leadership, the museum began its seven-year renovation of its flagship building in Washington, D.C., in 2018. Stofan also oversaw the momentous celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing in July 2019 at the museum and on the National Mall. She earned her bachelor’s degree in geology at the College of William & Mary and her master’s and doctoral degrees at Brown University, both in geological sciences. While finishing her doctoral degree, Stofan joined the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) as a post-doctoral fellow and became the deputy project scientist for the Magellan Mission to Venus.
Monique Chism, Under Secretary for Education
Monique M. Chism is the Smithsonian’s Under Secretary for Education and is responsible for establishing the Institution’s educational priorities. She oversees the Smithsonian’s collective initiatives, communication strategies and funding for programs with the goal of bringing the Smithsonian into every classroom in America. As the deputy assistant secretary for policy and programs at the U.S. Department of Education from 2013–2018, she was a principal advisor to the secretary of education and assistant secretary for the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. She managed a $22 billion grant portfolio and provided direction to six program offices, playing a crucial role in shaping pre-K–12 education policy. Prior to joining the Department of Education, Chism made significant contributions to the Illinois statewide system of support as the assistant superintendent for innovation and improvement at the Illinois State Board of Education. Chism holds a Bachelor of Arts from Ohio University, a Master of Arts from Central Michigan University and a doctorate from Michigan State University.
Kirk Johnson, Sant Director
Sant Director Dr. Kirk Johnson oversees a collection of more than 148 million objects and over 19,000 cubic feet of archival records—the largest natural history collection in the world. Each year, the Museum hosts more than 5 million visitors and its scientists publish more than 500 scientific research papers. Before joining the Smithsonian in 2012, Johnson was the vice president, chief curator and paleobotanist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science where he led expeditions in 11 countries that resulted in the discovery of more than 1,400 fossil sites. Dr. Johnson’s research focuses on fossil plants and the extinction of the dinosaurs, and he is known for his scientific articles, popular books, museum exhibitions, documentaries, and collaborations with artists. Dr. Johnson is originally from Bellevue, Washington, has a bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate in geology and paleobotany from Yale University.
Rebecca Johnson, CW Whitney Associate Director for Science and Chief Scientist
Dr. Rebecca Johnson is responsible for overall leadership and administration of the National Museum of Natural History’s research and collections activities. She oversees seven scientific departments comprising over 260 staff; the Laboratories of Analytical Biology; the Collections Program (care, registration, digitization); Informatics and Data Science Center (digital stewardship, informatics, genomics); Academic Services to interns, graduate students, fellows, research associates and collaborators, and emeritus scientists; high-level liaison and hosting of resident Federal Agencies (USDA, Commerce, Interior, Defense); numerous cross-cutting strategic science initiatives; and field stations (Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce and Carrie Bow Cay, Belize). Dr. Johnson is a wildlife forensic scientist and conservation geneticist who most recently held the role of Australian Museum Chief Scientist and Director of the Australian Museum Research Institute where she was instrumental in establishing the Australian Museum as a global leader in the field of wildlife forensic science and applied conservation genomics including strong translational research with direct links to industry. Dr. Johnson has an honors degree from the University of Sydney and PhD from La Trobe University Melbourne in the field of molecular evolutionary genetics and has worked as a molecular geneticist in Australia and the United States. In 2020 she became a Member of the Order of Australia for “significant service to wildlife forensic science and to young women scientists.”
Carla Easter, Broh-Kahn Weil Director of Education
Dr. Carla Easter is the first Broh-Kahn Weil Director of Education at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. She leads the teams responsible for developing and deploying the museum’s digital and onsite educational and community programming, welcoming and engaging visitors, and the operations of the live Insect Zoo, Butterfly Pavilion, and Q?rius, the Coralyn W. Whitney Science Education Center. She works with diverse communities, organizations, and academic institutions to construct and support networks that increase access to educational programming while creating spaces for authentic engagement.
Formerly, she served as chief of the Education and Community Involvement Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute (National Institutes of Health). Dr. Easter directed the outreach office for Washington University School of Medicine's Genome Sequencing Center and was a research associate in the Department of Education at Washington University where she explored the significance of science for secondary students. Dr. Easter also conducted post-doctoral research at Washington University School of Medicine’s Department of Molecular Microbiology. She earned her bachelor's degree in microbiology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and her doctoral degree in biology with an emphasis on molecular genetics from the University of California, San Diego.
Life on a Sustainable Planet - Ocean
Jessica Zehnpfennig, Ocean DNA Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
Jessica R. Zehnpfennig is an Ocean DNA Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Benthic Ecology lab and molecular lab manager at the Smithsonian Marine Station. Prior to this, she earned er PhD in Earth and Ecosystem Sciences from Central Michigan University. Her current research aims to utilize the Indian River Lagoon (IRL) to carry out Ocean DNA objectives using sequence-based approaches to identify and fill biodiversity knowledge gaps to help enhance research, monitoring and restoration. This research aims to develop and utilize environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques to conduct research on spatial and temporal changes in invertebrate biodiversity, enhance monitoring efforts and improve benthic condition assessments through eDNA sampling, help to assess the current state of the IRL benthic infaunal biodiversity knowledge, and create a genetic coverage gap analysis from the existing portfolio of species inventories and records. In her free time, Jessica likes to spend time with her dogs, read, and paint.
Amy Freestone, Senior Scientist and Managing Director of the Marine Invasions Research Laboratory
Dr. Amy Freestone is a community ecologist and senior scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Maryland. She is the Managing Director of the Marine Invasions Research Laboratory, a team of over 40 staff based on both coasts of the US. She joined SERC in May of 2024 after 15 years as faculty at Temple University in Philadelphia. From 2020-2024, she was the founding director of the Temple Ambler Field Station, a platform for field-based research and education. She completed her PhD in Ecology at the University of California, Davis and was a postdoctoral fellow at SERC. Her research focuses on how ecological dynamics change across broad biogeographic gradients, particularly latitude, and shape patterns of biodiversity and biological invasion.
Carole Baldwin, Curator of Fishes and Interim Sant Ocean Chair
Dr. Carole Baldwin is a Curator of Fishes and Interim Sant Ocean Chair at NMNH. Her current research is focused on diversity and eco-evolution of Caribbean reef fishes through integrative genetic and morphological investigation. This work has recently involved submersible diving to 300 m depth in the southern Caribbean as part of the Deep Reef Observation Project (DROP), a Smithsonian marine research initiative that Baldwin initiated in 2011 to explore and monitor long-term changes on poorly studied tropical deep reefs. DROP sub diving has resulted in the discovery of considerable new deep-reef biodiversity and the identification of a previously unrecognized deep-reef zone below the mesophotic, which Baldwin and colleagues named the rariphotic. Her career research on small, cryptobenthic reef fishes and their larvae was recently part of a multi-authored paper in Science describing the fundamental role these tiny reef dwellers play in coral-reef dynamics.
Life on a Sustainable Planet - Terrestrial
Jun Wen, Research Botanist, Chair of Botany
Jun Wen is a Research Botanist and an evolutionary biologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in the Department of Botany. She researches on the diversity and biogeography of the flowering plants, especially the grape, ginseng and rose plant families. She has published more than 400 scientific papers. Dr. Wen has studied the world's oldest grape fossils while investigating the systematics and evolutionary history of the modern grape family. She published the phylogenetic classification of the grape family Vitaceae. She has published extensively on the biogeographic relationships between eastern Asia and North America. Dr. Wen values collections and has collected over 20,000 numbers of plant specimens in 50 different countries, especially in Asia. Dr. Wen works to inspire interest in science in young people and has trained many young scientists on biodiversity and evolution throughout her career, hosting over 80 young students, international scholars and postdoctoral fellows in her laboratory.
Elizabeth (Liz) Cottrell, Research Geologist, Curator of Rocks and Ores, Chair of the Department of Mineral Sciences
Liz Cottrell received her Bachelor of Science degree from Brown University in 1997. Liz spent a year in Paris as a Fulbright Fellow before embarking on her PhD in petrology at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Liz arrived at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC in 2005 for a short postdoc before accepting her current position at NMNH in 2006. At NMNH, Liz has served as Director of the Global Volcanism Program and as Director of NSF-funded REU Site: Natural History Research Experiences before taking on her current role as Chair of the Department of Mineral Sciences. Liz is passionate about planetary interiors and mentoring the next generation of Earth Scientists. She is a Fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America, The Geochemical Society, and the European Association for Geochemistry.
Anna K. (Kay) Behrensmeyer, Senior Research Geologist and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology
Dr. Anna K. (Kay) Behrensmeyer is a paleontologist and geologist who studies taphonomy and land ecosystems through geological time, including Plio-Pleistocene human evolution in Africa, the Miocene paleoecology of Pakistan, and the Triassic of North America. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Geological Sciences, Harvard University, and since 1981 has been Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. She served as a core team member for the NMNH exhibition, The David H. Koch Hall of Fossils: Deep Time and also was featured in the Bearded Lady Project exhibit at NMNH.
Mysteries of the Universe
Jennifer Whitten, Research Geologist
Dr. Jennifer Whitten is a Research Geologist at the Center of Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Her research spans the solar system and focuses on processes that generate and modify planetary crusts. She combines a variety of space-based and ground-based data types (radar, visible imagery, visible-near infrared spectroscopy, topography). Most of her work has focused on rocky planetary bodies, though she has worked on icy bodies as well. Dr. Whitten is involved in several planetary science instrument and mission teams. She participated on the SHARAD instrument team aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is still in flight. Upcoming missions and instruments that have yet to launch include the VERITAS mission to Venus and the VenSAR instrument on the EnVision mission. Dr. Whitten is the Associate Deputy Principle Investigator for the VERITAS mission.
Cecillia Garraffo, AI Astrophysicist, Director of AstroAI
Dr. Cecilia Garraffo is the “AI Astrophysicist” at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and director of the AstroAI Institute there. Originally from Argentina, Dr. Garraffo received her Master’s in Astronomy at the National University of La Plata and her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Buenos Aires. Her Ph.D. was in theories of gravity, which led her to a position at Brandeis University, where she developed an interest in their neuroscience research group where she learned about neural networks. This interest launched her into the world of machine learning and artificial intelligence methods for astronomy. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the CfA doing computational astrophysics and then joined the Institute for Applied Computational Sciences at Harvard where she studied pure AI methods and taught data science courses. Dr. Garraffo then returned to the CfA to work on Chandra and in 2023 founded the AstroAI Institute, which she is now the full-time director of.
Catherine (Cari) Corrigan, Research Geologist/Curator of Antarctic Meteorites
Cari Corrigan is a research geologist in the Department of Mineral Sciences, who curates the U.S. Antarctic Meteorite Collection. As part of her research, Cari studies meteorites from asteroids, The Moon, and Mars in order to understand better how the rocky bodies in our solar system formed and were affected by impact events. Cari has been to Antarctica to recover meteorites, has served on the Mars Exploration Rover team, and is currently a member of the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis team studying newly opened rock cores from the Apollo 17 mission.
Communicating SI Research
Alison Cawood, Director of Public Engagement
Dr. Alison Cawood is the Director of Public Engagement at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC). In this role, she oversees SERC’s environmental education, citizen science, and professional training programs, and works to make SERC science relevant to a wide range of audiences. Prior to working at SERC, Alison worked as an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego and as an instructor with Reality Changers, an educational non-profit that provides mentoring and tutoring for first-generation college students. Alison earned her Ph.D. in Oceanography from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, where she was a National Science Foundation GK-12 Teaching Fellow. She earned bachelor’s degrees in Marine Biology and Hispanic Studies from the College of Charleston.
Jennifer Collins, Learning Experience Manager, Office of Education, Outreach and Visitor Experience
Jennifer Collins is the Learning Experience Manager in the Office of Education, Outreach and Visitor Experience at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Her career has been spent in both formal and informal science education to advance student, teacher, and public understanding of science. At NMNH, Jennifer manages teams in the development and implementation of programs and resources that deepen and broaden engagement and understanding in Smithsonian science and human connections to the natural world. With her particular interest in climate change, Collins spearheaded the establishment of the SI Climate Collaborators group with representation from over 20 SI Units and is an active member on committees for climate literacy and climate action accountability. Prior to joining NMNH, Jennifer held previous position at the University of California Museum of Paleontology at Berkely working on Understanding Evolution and Understanding Science websites; the Consortium of Ocean Leadership leading immersive professional development programs onboard the JOIDES Resolution, and taught secondary science in both California and Virginia school districts. She holds degrees in Zoology and Teaching from University of California, Davis, and National University.
About the Photo at Top of Page
Myria Perez, FossiLab Manager and Educator in the David H. Koch Hall of Fossils – Deep Time FossiLab at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, prepares to replace the plaster mount on USNM V 2185, fossil lizard Saniwa ensidens Leidy, 1870. This specimen is a holotype in the museum's Paleobiology collections and was collected from the Bridger Formation in Uinta County, Wyoming, in 1870.
This image pays homage to an earlier photograph of fossil preparator Norman H. Boss preparing a plaster mount for the same specimen in 1922, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 12-492, Image No. SIA2012-2790. As of 02/24/2025, see: http://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_arc_367765
