Speakers Bureau

Inspire, Challenge, Motivate

National Geographic Speakers Bureau represents the world’s boldest Explorers, scientists, photographers and storytellers. These tailor-made experiences inspire, challenge and motivate audiences — from dynamic corporate keynotes to unforgettable gala evenings. Contact us today to bring the world to your private event.

Available Speakers

Showing 9 of 41 results

Andrés Alfonso Ruzo

Science, Conservationism, Climate Change

Andrés Ruzo is a geothermal scientist, conservationist, educator, host, author and science communicator best known for his work at the Boiling River of the Amazon. He holds degrees in geology and finance, and will soon finish his Ph.D. in Earth sciences focusing on geothermal studies. Ruzo is a National Geographic Explorer and has been on multiple Society-funded grants. He is the host of an award-winning NatGeo Latin America television show, "Misterios del Inframundo" (Mysteries of the Underworld). His work has been featured on various National Geographic media outlets including the magazine, television channels, website and social media, as well as branded partnerships with BMW, LEGO, and Coors Light. Ruzo grew up between Peru, Nicaragua and the United States, and is currently based between Miami, U.S. and Lima, Peru. While doing research for a National Geographic Society-funded project, Ruzo investigated a detail in a childhood legend he heard as a boy in Lima about a mysterious "river that boiled" in the heart of the jungle. This legendary river proved to be real and in 2011, Ruzo became the first geoscientist granted the shamanic blessing to study it. Flowing hot for nearly four miles (over six kilometers), nearly 15 feet deep (about 4.5 meters) at its deepest point, and almost 100 feet wide (about 30 meters) at its widest point-- the Boiling River is currently the world's largest documented thermal river, even though it is over 430 miles (over 700 miles) away from the nearest active volcanic center. Ruzo is the founder and director of the Boiling River Project, a nonprofit aimed at understanding, protecting and bringing value to the Boiling River, the Amazon and unique geothermal systems across the globe. Through the Boiling River Project, he works to turn the Boiling River area into a mecca of scientific investigation and has played active roles in research from various fields of geoscience, botany, biology, microbiology, anthropology, linguistics, ethno-history, shamanism, conservation economics, wildlife trafficking and sustainable tourism. He engages in Indigenous and local empowerment work in the Central Peruvian Amazon through educational and sustainable economic initiatives. Beyond his Amazonian work, Ruzo is also heavily involved in K-12 and university level education.

Benjamin H. Mirin

Photography, Culture, Conservationism, Technology, Wildlife

Ben Mirin is the founding director of the Creative Conservation Lab (CCL) in partnership with Cornell University and UNC Chapel Hill. CCL combines biodiversity, art and storytelling to make conservation more inclusive, and is currently seeking collaborators in these spaces to advance their mission. By training, Mirin is an acoustic biologist, storyteller and artist who studies sound in nature and biocultural conservation. He also composes music from his sound recordings and performs live as a “wildlife DJ.” Mirin completed his Ph.D. in 2024 at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, where he studied birdsong and the wildlife trade in Indonesia. Through science, music and media, he combines his passions to engage new audiences in a more inclusive and sustainable future for all life on earth. Mirin is the creator and host of the digital and television series "WILD BEATS" on National Geographic Kids and Nat Geo Wild. He is also a 2016 National Geographic Explorer, Certified Educator, and Speaker with NG Expeditions and Nat Geo Live. Mirin has been a senior fellow at The Safina Center and The Explorers Club, and the first Artist in Residence at the Bronx Zoo with additional residencies at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India and the Art Institute of Chicago. He is the recipient of Fulbright Hays, Department of Education FLAS, and NSF Graduate Research Fellowships, the Scott Pearlman Field Award in Exploration, and a four-time TED speaker. His online game, BeastBox, has been distributed to over four million students worldwide, and he has written, produced and starred in films about science for National Geographic, bioGraphic, Slate, Smithsonian Magazine, Scientific American Online, Audubon Magazine and others. He lives between Ithaca, New York; Boston; and Washington D.C.

Bob Poole

Adventure, Conservationism, Photography, Science, Storytelling, Wildlife, Resilience

Bob Poole is an Emmy Award winning Director of Photography, Television Presenter and Speaker. He has an extensive credit list with BBC, PBS NATURE, NOVA, Discovery Networks, and an additional 50 plus films for National Geographic. Growing up in East Africa, Bob experienced an extraordinary childhood exploring the wilderness and wildlife that thrived there in the 1960’s and 1970’s. His unique upbringing gave him an appreciation and curiosity of the natural world, a highly adventurous spirit, and a strong sense of self-reliance. Poole’s career began in his teens on a film about elephants for National Geographic. He is a Fellow with the Explorers Club and has spoken in over 50 venues across the US, Canada and Australia, filling concert halls including Benaroya in Seattle and the Sydney Opera House. His recent work has taken him to one of Africa’s harshest climates to film desert elephants in Namibia for a four-part series by James Cameron, narrated by Natalie Portman, for National Geographic called Secrets of the Elephants, currently streaming on Disney+.Bob’s most film as Director of Photography is Tusker: The Brotherhood of Elephants has just premiered on PBS Nature, YouTube, Hulu and AppleTV. He is currently speaking in venues across the US.

Brian J. Buma

Adventure, Climate Change, Conservationism, Science, Technology

Brian Buma is a climate scientist and published author. His work focuses on dynamic change in ecosystems—from wildfires to landslides to the ordinary migration of species in response to changing climates. He utilizes a range of methods, from field expeditions to satellite imagery, to gain a unique perspective on regional and global questions. Buma led an expedition to the back of Glacier Bay, Alaska, to rediscover the oldest running permanent plot network in the world. These sites, monitored consistently since 1916, were lost in the late 1980s. He is also leading the field documenting the effects of snow loss on forests around the world, running studies in the boreal of Alaska and high country of Colorado and chairing international sessions on the topic. In 2019, Buma led an expedition to southern Chile to document the furthest-south trees in the world, found in the wild ocean islands of Cape Horn. His latest work explored the northernmost land on the planet, off the north coast of Greenland. A senior climate scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund and associated research professor at the University of Colorado Denver (and affiliate professor at the University of Alaska), Buma’s findings have been featured in National Geographic, the New York Times, Northwest Native News, High Country News, and international peer-reviewed journals.

Brian J. Skerry

Wildlife, Photography, Conservationism, Science, Adventure, Climate Change, Leadership, Resilience, Storytelling, Sustainability, Teamwork

Brian Skerry is a film producer/director and veteran photojournalist specializing in marine wildlife and underwater realms. His recent documentary film credits include "Secrets of the Whales" and "Return of the White Shark," both currently streaming on Disney+. In 2021, Skerry received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary as a producer of "Secrets of the Whales." Since 1998, Skerry has been a contributing photographer for National Geographic magazine, where he has created and photographed more than 30 feature stories, including seven cover stories. His work has also been featured in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Paris Match, Esquire, and Audubon. In 2014 he was named as a National Geographic Society Photography Fellow and then named a National Geographic Society Storytelling Fellow in 2017 - the same year he was awarded the title of Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year. In 2016, he received the National Geographic magazine's Photographer’s Photographer Award, a recognition bestowed by his colleagues, other National Geographic magazine photographers. Skerry was named the 2025 Nature Photographer of the Year by the North American Nature Photographers Association. Skerry is the author of 12 books including the acclaimed monographs "Ocean Soul," "SHARK" and "Secrets of the Whales."

Bryan R. Smith

Photography, Conservationism

When Bryan Smith bought his first camera at WalMart in 2007, he had no idea his passion and persistence would carry him through the ranks of the industry in the span of just a decade. His first film, 49 Megawatts, documented a community’s struggle with a hydroelectric project on the Ashlu River and eventually led him to the hallways of National Geographic. He received an Expedition Council grant to lead a team of kayakers into the wilds of Kamchatka and went on to direct The Man Who Can Fly for the National Geographic Channel. After several years as a freelance director of photography for National Geographic, Bryan founded Reel Water Productions. A boutique production company based in Squamish, British Columbia specializing in documentary, expedition and commercial content. Known for taking cameras into some of the most extreme and inhospitable places on the planet, Bryan is now using his skills behind the lens for the giant screen. He is currently working on one of the most anticipated IMAX films in the industry, Einstein’s Incredible Universe.

Caitlin E. O'Connell-Rodwell

Wildlife, Science, Photography, Storytelling, Conservationism

Caitlin O’Connell-Rodwell is a behavioral ecologist who has studied elephant society within Etosha National Park, Namibia, for over 30 years. Her National Geographic Society-funded project started in 2002, when she began measurements of the seismic properties of elephant low frequency vocalizations and the elephants’ ability to detect these vibrations as signals. The scope of her work expanded beyond acoustic and seismic studies to a broad look at how an elephant society is organized in an arid environment. O’Connell-Rodwell's journey as a scientist began as an undergraduate majoring in biology, which led to a master’s degree in animal communication, studying the role communication plays in species isolation mechanisms in the Hawaiian Islands. From there, she traveled through southern Africa for a year and accepted a three-year contract with the Namibian Government, working with farmers in rural Zambezi to help them manage the elephant/human interface in the region, along with studying elephant ecology and behavior and particularly their vocal communication. That work formed the basis of her dissertation research at University of California, Davis, where she obtained a Ph.D. in ecology. O’Connell-Rodwell then took on a postdoc at Stanford University in the Center for Conservation Biology to study ivory trade policy based in China, realizing her passion lay in studying African elephants in the wild. O’Connell-Rodwell and her husband co-founded a nonprofit organization, Utopia Scientific, in 2002. She has published numerous books and scientific and popular feature articles about her research, including features in Scientific American, National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine and Aeon Magazine. She has given two TED talks and many public lectures around the world, including several countries in Europe, as well as China, Australia and Africa. She was voted Distinguished Young Alumna at UC Davis, and won the Sibert and Horn Book Honors for her co-authored book, "The Elephant Scientist." O’Connell-Rodwell is currently working on several documentaries, storytelling and speaking engagements to help further instill an awe of nature in budding scientists and nature lovers.

Cole Sartore

Conservationism, Photography, Resilience, Storytelling, Wildlife, Climate Change

National Geographic Photo Ark curator, field producer, and photo editor Cole Sartore is a photographer, speaker, author, curator, and conservationist. Started by his father, Joel, the Photo Ark has become the world’s largest collection of species portraiture. Since it’s inception in 2006, the Photo Ark has documented over 16,000 species in more than 70 countries worldwide. The goal is to create a visual archive of global biodiversity, and move the public to care about extinction. The Photo Ark shares imagery of the most vulnerable animals on this planet through numerous magazine publications, books, television, public projections, and two new National Geographic books: The Photo Ark and Photo Ark Wonders. Images from the collection also were shown on 10 different covers of National Geographic Magazine in April of 2016. Sartore has served as co-editor of National Geographic YourShot, videographer, producer, and Photo Ark editor, guest curator of the Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art, and principal of the Nebraska based fine art gallery, the Lincoln Art Company. Through the work of Joel, Cole, and many others, Photo Ark images and video continue to inspire and awe viewers through incredibly intricate, elegantly composed portraits of animals throughout the world. The Photo Ark has been the subject of several national broadcasts, including 60 Minutes, National Geographic Explorer, NBC Nightly News, NPR’s Weekend Edition, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, CBS Sunday Morning, and the PBS documentary series, Rare: Portraits of the Photo Ark. Sartore graduated from the University of Nebraska with a degree in anthropology. He currently lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Dereck Joubert and Beverly Joubert

Adventure, Conservationism, Photography, Resilience, Storytelling, Sustainability, Wildlife

Award-winning filmmakers and National Geographic Explorers at Large Beverly and Dereck Joubert have dedicated the last four decades to conservation work across 30 countries.They were awarded a Presidential Order of Merit by Botswana’s president, Seretse Khama Ian Khama. Their wildlife films have earned 23 Emmy nominations, 9 Emmy awards, a Peabody, Grand Teton, Golden Panda awards, World Ecology Award, the Mervin Jones Fellow Award from Lions Club International and the 2021 Explorers Club Medial, the clubs highest honor.In addition to their highly acclaimed films, the Joubert’s have co-founded Great Plains Conservation and Great Plains Foundation. They presently manage over 1.5 million acres of wild lands in Africa, and that holds an estimated 2-3% of Africa’s elephants, lions, giraffe and other wildlife.In partnership with National Geographic, the Jouberts founded the Big Cats initiative in 2009, as an emergency initiative to slow the rapid decline of big cats around the world, with over 157 Grants in 29 Countries. This program has now transitioned to the Great Plains Big Cats Initiative, under the Joubert’s leadership and Great Plains Foundation management.Setting their sights on sweeping change, Dereck and Beverly created Rhinos Without Borders, a revolutionary initiative that moved 87 rhinos from high poaching areas to safety. They also started two other projects; Project Rewild in Zimbabwe relocating 101 elephants, 70 giraffes, 68 Zebras and 184 impalas to restore and rewild depleted habitats and Empowering Women in Conservation, both of these projects have received grants from National Geographic.

Schedule A Discovery Call

Book one of our speakers to captivate your next corporate gathering, convention keynote or other private event. Our team can guide you through the booking process and assist with finding the perfect speaker for every audience and occasion.