Conservation in Context Speaker bios

Elliott Norse Ph.D. Marine ecologist.

Dr. Norse is the President of Marine Conservation Biology Institute has worked at the conservation science-policy interface for his entire career. After earning his B.S. in Biology from Brooklyn College, he completed his Ph.D. at University of Southern California and his Postdoctoral Fellowship at University of Iowa. He has worked at the US Environmental Protection Agency, President’s Council on Environmental Quality, Ecological Society of America, Wilderness Society and Ocean Conservancy before founding Marine Conservation Biology Institute in 1996.  Dr. Norse’s 140+ publications include 4 books.  He is a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation and Adjunct Professor of Marine Conservation Science and Policy at Duke University Marine Laboratory. 

Dr. Keith Alexander

Dr. Keith D. Alexander is Director of Archives at the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies at Shepherd University. He also coordinates the Historic Preservation program, part of Shepherd University’s Institute for Environmental Studies. After graduating from Penn State in 1992, Alexander worked in Washington, DC as an environmental policy analyst before returning to graduate school. He received his MA in 1996 and his PhD in 2003 in history from the University of Maryland, completing his dissertation on the history of the German Green Party. He has been involved in historic preservation efforts in West Virginia and in Germany. His research interests include historic preservation and environmental sustainability, as well as service learning in preservation education.

Joel Salatin, Farmer and author

Salatin is the owner and operator of Polyface Farms in Swoope, Virginia, a family owned, multigenerational “beyond organic” farm, and is known as an innovator and speaker in the use of environmentally responsible farming techniques.  He holds a BA in English, writes extensively in agricultural periodicals and is the author of six books.  His farm’s techniques have been featured in Smithsonian Magazine, National Geographic, the New York Times bestselling book the Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and many other print and broadcast media.   Salatin’s participation as a speaker will complement several film submissions on the subject of food and agriculture, our relationship to the land that feeds us, and how our current culture of food diminishes both our environment and our health.   His participation will be part of ACFF’s coordination with Shepherd University’s Common Reading Program at the Festival.

Michael Soule, Ph.D. Evolutionary and Conservation Biologist

Dr. Soulé is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz.  He has also taught in Samoa, the Universities of California at both San Diego and Santa Cruz, and the University of Michigan.   Dr. Soulé was a founder of the Society for Conservation Biology and The Wildlands Project.  He has written and edited 9 books on biology, conservation biology, and the social and policy context of conservation.  He has published more than 170 articles on population and evolutionary biology and other scientific topics, nature conservation, and ethics.  He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of numerous awards.  Dr. Soulé frequently speaks and writes on morality and conservation.  His research on biodiversity will complement several wildlife films ACFF will be screening, and his leadership on conservation ethics will help guide panel discussions of the human dimensions of conservation.

William Stolzenburg

Mr. Stolzenburg is former science editor for Nature Conservancy magazine now a freelance journalist writing about wild animals and wild places and the people who would save them. He is the screenwriter for the film Lords of Nature which features some of the leading characters and locales that were featured in his recent book Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators,