Monterey Bay Aquarium CEO continues UH Hilo Tseng Distinguished Lecture Series

A leading voice for science-based policy reform in support of a healthy global ocean continues the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo Rose and Raymond Tseng Distinguished Lecture Series on Monday, February 27, 7 p.m., in the Performing Arts Center. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The public is invited to attend.

Julie Packard, the founding executive director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California, presents “Charting a Course for the Future of the Ocean.” A Q&A will follow her presentation.

Under Packard’s leadership, the aquarium has pioneered innovative exhibits and education initiatives, and engaged on ocean issues ranging from sustainable global fisheries and aquaculture to plastic pollution, climate change, and science-based conservation of marine wildlife and ecosystems, including sea otters, sharks and bluefin tuna.

She is a trustee of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and chairs the board of the independent Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, a leader in deep ocean science and technology. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she has received the Audubon Medal for Conservation, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the California Coastal Commission’s Coastal Hero award. She is featured in the National Portrait Gallery.

Packard serves on the Joint Oceans Commission Initiative, working to implement comprehensive reform of U.S. ocean policy. She has addressed ocean issues at international conferences, including the World Trade Organization and Global Climate Action Summit.

“This is a momentous time in the life of our planet,” Packard says. “The fate and future of eight billion people hinge on decisions we make in the next few years.

“For most of human history, we’ve acted like the ocean has endless capacity to feed us and be our dumping ground,” she adds. “Now we know that’s a dangerous assumption. We need to act as if our lives depended on the health of the ocean. Because they do.”

Packard earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a focus on marine algae.

The UH Hilo Rose and Raymond Tseng Distinguished Lecture is an initiative supported by an endowed fund started by UH Hilo Chancellor Emerita Rose Tseng. The lecture series is intended to continue Hawaiʻi’s dialogue with the rest of the world in areas that were important to Tseng during her tenure as UH Hilo Chancellor, including local entrepreneurship, international women’s leadership, global technology, the integration of science and culture, and indigenous language/cultural issues. Jennifer Doudna, a pioneer in genome editing and recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was the inaugural speaker.

For disability accommodation, contact Lei Kapono at (808) 932-7348 (V) or lei.kapono@hawaii.edu by February 20.