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 24 results

Alicia Odewale

Resilience, Culture, Storytelling

Alicia Odewale (Ware) was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is the great grandniece of Robert Ware, who attended Dunbar Grade School in Greenwood and survived the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. She is also a graduate of Booker T. Washington High School, a historically Black high school created during Oklahoma’s Jim Crow era and one of the few structures that survived the attack on Greenwood in 1921. She earned her college degrees at Westminster College and The University of Tulsa (TU), and in 2016 made history as the first person of African descent to receive a doctorate in anthropology at TU. She was also the first Black faculty member to join TU’s department of anthropology and today continues to work as an archaeologist and educator in Oklahoma, specializing in African Diaspora archaeology in the Caribbean and southeastern United States with a theoretical focus on community-centered, restorative justice, anti-racist and Black feminist archaeology. Since 2014, Odewale has been researching archaeological sites related to Afro-Caribbean heritage on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, and since 2019 has been researching sites of Black heritage in her home state of Oklahoma. Her latest research project, “Mapping Historical Trauma in Tulsa from 1921-2021,” is co-created with other Tulsans and seeks to reanalyze historical evidence from the aftermath of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, launch new community-based archaeological investigations in the Historic Greenwood District, and use radical mapping techniques to visualize the impact of the massacre through time on the landscape of Greenwood. Odewale joined the National Geographic family in 2021 as a speaker with National Geographic Live through her show entitled “Greenwood: A Century of Resilience”. She also accepted the invitation to become a community leader through National Geographic’s 2892 Miles to Go: Geographic Walk for Justice Project. Both projects provide an opportunity for her to go beyond the classroom and share her research in new and innovative ways with the world. Her research interests include the archaeology of enslavement and freedom in urban contexts, Caribbean archaeology, rural and urban comparative analyses, community-based archaeology, ceramic analysis, transferware studies, mapping historical trauma from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, restorative justice and auto-archaeology, and investigations into different forms of anti-slavery resistance. She is also the co-creator of the Greenwood Archaeology Curriculum and the #TulsaSyllabus, an online resource guide that dives into the history and archaeology of Black enslavement, land ownership, anti-Black violence, and the rise of prosperous Black communities in Oklahoma. Her research has received awards and support from the National Geographic Society, the American Anthropological Association, the National Science Foundation, the Society of Historical Archaeology, the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, and the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS).

Anastasia Taylor-Lind

Photography, Resilience, Storytelling, Teamwork, Adventure, Culture, Health

Anastasia Taylor-Lind is a British-Swedish photojournalist who has contributed to National Geographic magazine and other leading editorial publications. She is also an author, poet, TED Fellow and 2016 Harvard Nieman Fellow. Taylor-Lind has worked in Ukraine for over a decade, covering issues relating to women, war and violence. Her first book, "MAIDAN - Portraits from the Black Square," documents the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution and was published by GOST Books the same year. Her poetry focuses on contemporary conflicts and the experiences she cannot photograph. In 2022, her first collection, "One Language," was published in the U.K. by Smith|Doorstop. In 2023, she received the Canon Female Photojournalist Award for her long-term reporting from eastern Ukraine, and over 100,000 people visited her exhibition 'Ukraine: Photographs from the Frontline' at the Imperial War Museum.

Barton Seaver

Adventure, Climate Change, Culture, Health, Resilience, Storytelling, Sustainability

Barton Seaver is a chef who has dedicated his career to restoring the relationship we have with our ocean. It is his belief that the choices we are making for dinner are directly impacting the ocean and its fragile ecosystems. Seaver has manned the helm of some of Washington, D.C.’s most acclaimed restaurants. In doing so, he brought the idea of sustainable seafood to the nation’s capitol while earning Esquire magazine’s 2009 “Chef of the Year” status from acclaimed food writer John Mariani. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Seaver has cooked in cities all over America and the world. Having been bitten by the travel bug, Seaver found work in southern Spain at a small family restaurant. Their casual, ingredient-based cooking style would prove to be an important influence in his perception of food as an essential part of community. When the off-season arrived, Seaver hopped on a boat to Morocco and landed in the small seaside village of Essaouira. There, he took part in generations-old fishing methods, becoming a part of a community whose survival was directly linked to the oceans. This had a huge impact on his belief that sustainability is, at its root, not only an ecological matter, but also a humanitarian one. While sustainability has largely been assigned to seafood and agriculture, Barton’s work expands far beyond the dining table to encompass socio-economic and cultural issues. Locally, he pursues solutions to these problems through D.C. Central Kitchen, an organization fighting hunger not with food, but with personal empowerment, job training, and life skills. Barton has been lauded as a leader in sustainability by the Seafood Choices Alliance and was named a fellow with the Blue Ocean Institute. Barton has joined the board of Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment. Together with National Geographic, the Center is partnering with hospitals and health care providers in the Greater Boston area to educate them about healthier and more sustainable food service opportunities. He is the author of For Cod And Country (Sterling, Spring 2011), a book of recipes that inspires ocean conservation through the experience that we all share—dinner. In addition, Barton is working on television and online shows that will engage consumers by telling stories everyone can relate to, whether they are preparing a meal or preparing to eat it.

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.

Caitie Barrett

Culture, Science, Storytelling

Caitlín Eilís (Caitie) Barrett is an archaeologist who studies everyday life and cross-cultural interactions in the ancient Mediterranean. She is a professor of classics at Cornell University. She also co-directs an archaeological excavation at Pompeii: the Casa della Regina Carolina (CRC) Project, which explores the ways that Roman houses and gardens shaped their inhabitants’ lived experiences. Her areas of specialization include Mediterranean and Egyptian archaeology, household archaeology, the archaeology of religion and ritual and interactions between Egypt and the Greco-Roman world in antiquity. In addition to her current fieldwork at Pompeii, she has also excavated and surveyed a range of Bronze Age through early modern sites in Egypt, Greece and the United States. Barrett earned her Ph.D. from Yale and her Bachelor of Arts from Harvard. She is the author of two books: "Egyptianizing Figurines from Delos: A Study in Hellenistic Religion" (Brill, 2011) and "Domesticating Empire: Egyptian Landscapes in Pompeian Gardens" (Oxford University Press, 2019), as well as numerous scholarly articles. She is the recipient of grants from the National Geographic Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Foundation (two-time recipient), Dumbarton Oaks, the International Catacomb Society, the American Philosophical Society, the Rust Family Foundation, the American Research Center in Egypt, the Archaeological Institute of America and Sigma Xi. In exploring the material remains of the past, she seeks to better understand some of the most profoundly human aspects of life at Pompeii: the daily experiences, activities and sensations that made up people’s lives.

Christopher John Schell

Wildlife, Culture

Dr. Christopher J. Schell is an urban ecologist, professor, Afrofuturist, father, and published author. Schell’s research sits at the intersection of animal behavior, physiology, urban biodiversity conservation, environmental justice, and One Health to investigate how carnivores—namely coyotes, foxes, and raccoons—adapt to life in cities. In addition, Schell’s lab integrates critical discourses on how structural oppression (e.g., redlining, pollution burden, and socioeconomic disparities) directly shape the very urban features associated with human-wildlife interactions, conflict, and adaptation. This transdisciplinary work aims to disentangle how environmental injustices have structured our urban ecosystems and how we can harness those lessons to build more just, biodiverse, and resilient cities. Schell is a Grist Fixer, Cal Academy Fellow and board member, and affiliate faculty with the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, with his work featured in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Vox’s Explained, and various NPR and PBS outlets. Since 2021, he has served on the faculty in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM) at the University of California, Berkeley. A born-and-raised Los Angelean now firmly planted in the Bay Area, Schell weaves his lived experiences as a Black man and Californian to coproduce justice- and equity-centered research programs with local communities that regenerate urban nature, bolster environmental health, and break barriers to access for all peoples.

Daniella Zalcman

Photography, Storytelling, Culture

Daniella Zalcman is a Vietnamese-American documentary photographer based in New Orleans. She is a Catchlight Fellow, a multiple grantee of the National Geographic Society and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a fellow with the International Women's Media Foundation, and the founder of Women Photograph, a nonprofit working to elevate the voices of women and nonbinary visual journalists. Her work tends to focus on the legacies of western colonization, from the rise of homophobia in East Africa to the forced assimilation education of Indigenous children in North America. Daniella is also currently a Professor of Practice at Tulane where she teaches classes on community engagement journalism and the ethics of visual media. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in architecture in 2009.

Diana Magaloni

Culture, Science, Leadership, Storytelling

Dr. Diana Magaloni has led a versatile career as museum leader, art historian, author, curator, and conservator. As Deputy Director at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art , she leads an innovative mentoring and curatorial program as the Head Curator of the Department of Art of the Ancient Americas and serves as Director of the museum’s Conservation Center. The work that she and her team do with indigenous communities, artists and countries of origin have served to implement museum's best practices and involvement with the public, and has been documented in film. Her books and exhibitions have won awards for excellence. Before moving to Los Angeles, she was Director of the National Museum of Anthropology—Mexico’s internationally well-respected national museum. Due to her vision and abilities as public speaker she was a successful fundraiser. She worked as a researcher and professor at the National University of Mexico. Her research has been characterized by innovation, collaborating with artists, scholars and scientists in Europe, the United States, and Latin America. Her unique approach combines art history with scientific analysis of works of art, a method that has influenced many in the field. She inspires audiences with her storytelling bridging the gap between academia and the general public; she was a speaker in National Geographic Live with sold out performances across the US. She has published extensively, including the books Colors of the New World: Materials, Artists, and the Creation of the Florentine Codex (2014) At LACMA, she has curated numerous exhibitions, including Picasso and Rivera: Conversations Across Time (2017), which received the 2018 Award for Excellence from the Association of Art Museum Curators; The Portable Universe, Thought and Splendor of Indigenous Colombia (2022), the catalogue for which was awarded the Alfred H. Barr Award by the College Art Association; and We Live in Painting: The Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art (2024).

Ella Al-Shamahi

Adventure, Culture, Science, Teamwork, Storytelling, Conservationism

Ella Al-Shamahi is an explorer, palaeoanthropologist, and evolutionary biologist turned stand-up and TV presenter, who has fronted science, natural history and archaeology programmes on the BBC, National Geographic, PBS and beyond! With an adventurous spirit and unafraid to get her hands dirty, Ella specialises in expeditions in politically unstable hostile territories like Yemen and Somaliland. In 2015 she was given the prestigious title of National Geographic Explorer. New for 2025, Ella has been announced to present HUMAN, a major 5-part BBC and PBS series. This exciting series uses a combination of archaeology, travelogue and reconstruction to tell the story of how we became, well, ‘us’: modern humans. Ella will follow in the footsteps of our ancient ancestors – visiting historical sites to meet experts who can help her unlock the secrets of our deep past. She is also making her mark in the podcast scene as host of the BBC World Services’s The Conversation – a podcast that brings women together who share an experience or expertise. She is also on her second season of BBC Radio 4’s Why Do We Do That. In 2019 she presented National Geographic’s Viking Warrior Women where during filming she discovered what might be the first evidence of a battle injury on a female Viking warrior! As well as this, Ella has presented multiple documentaries for Channel 4 including ‘What Killed the Whale’ which investigated a 40-foot sei whale washed up in… Edinburgh! In addition to her scientific work, Ella uses comedy as a tool to communicate complex scientific concepts to a wider audience. She has performed stand-up comedy internationally, including at the Bloomsbury Theatre, the National Geographic main stage, and Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She was a TED main stage speaker in 2019 where her talk on explaining dangerous places gained 2.5 million views. Finally her first book ‘The Handshake’ was a Times Book of the Year.

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