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 53 results

Alex R. Hearn

Wildlife, Science

Alex Hearn is a marine ecologist who is researching whale shark migrations around the Galapagos Islands. He is a professor at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) and the Galapagos Science Center. He is also a founding member and Board President of the regional research network, MigraMar, and in 2020 was named co-champion of the Mission Blue Galapagos Hope Spot. Alex's projects use acoustic and satellite telemetry to establish the migratory pathways of sharks at different times of the year in the southern Galapagos and coastal mainland Ecuador. He led a multi-institutional team of biologists to develop a blueprint for improved conservation outside the Galapagos Marine Reserve, which resulted in the creation of the new Hermandad Reserve in 2022. Alex's work has been featured in stand-alone documentaries and in the iconic Blue Planet II and Galapagos documentary series.

Aliyah Griffith

Resilience, Science, Teamwork, Leadership, Climate Change, Adventure

Dr. Aliyah Griffith is a marine scientist passionate about marine science communication and inclusivity. Focusing on coral reef resilience and management, her research experiences have taken her from the reefs of Moorea, French Polynesia, to the Caribbean coastlines of Barbados. In 2022, she became the first African-American to earn a graduate degree in marine science from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. In 2025, she became the first African American to receive a PhD from the same department. As the Founder of Mahogany Mermaids, a nonprofit dedicated to inspiring children of color to engage in aquatic sciences, she has reached hundreds of children nationally with virtual and in-person events and resources. Passionate about inspiring future generations, she has authored a children’s book, My Secret Mermaid, showcasing careers in marine science and ocean exploration.

Alizé A. Carrère

Wildlife, Climate Change, Science

Alizé Carrère is a scientist and filmmaker researching and documenting human adaptations to climate change. She completed her Ph.D. in ecosystem science and policy at the University of Miami, where she examined the rise of “climatopias,” aspirational architecture and urban planning proposals for climate change. Prior to that, Carrère completed a Bachelor of Arts in environmental science and Master of Science in bioresource engineering at McGill University. During this time, she lived in Panama, Peru, France, and the Middle East, doing fieldwork on a range of human-environment interactions. After receiving a grant from National Geographic Society in 2013 to examine how farmers were unexpectedly adapting to severe deforestation in Madagascar, her work evolved into a broader film project on human resilience in the face of profound environmental change. Supported by additional grants from the National Geographic Society, The Redford Center and PBS, this culminated in a docuseries produced and hosted by Carrère for PBS Digital called ADAPTATION, covering adaptation stories in places such as Bangladesh, Ladakh, Vanuatu, and the United States. Her experiences have afforded her unique insights on the role of collaborative storytelling and the human dimensions of climate change.

Anand A. Varma

Science, Wildlife, Photography

Anand Varma is a National Geographic Explorer and award-winning photographer based in Berkeley, California. He has devoted years of his life to developing innovative techniques—even building some of his own equipment—to create intimate, dramatic and surprising images of nature. He holds a degree in integrative biology from University of California, Berkeley and uses photography to share the story behind the science on topics from honeybee health to hummingbird biomechanics. Varma has photographed numerous stories for National Geographic magazine, including the 2014 cover story, “Mindsuckers.” His accolades include TED speaker, World Press Photo Award, and Rita Allen Civic Science Fellow. Varma's ultimate goal is to spark a sense of wonder about our world. He sees the camera not just as a tool to capture what is visible, but as a way to illuminate the layers of beauty and complexity that are otherwise hidden from the naked eye.

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.

Ariel Waldman

Adventure, Climate Change, Leadership, Science, Space, Storytelling

Ariel Waldman is a National Geographic Explorer and filmmaker. Her expeditions take her from tallgrass prairies and deep-sea canyons to the icy realms of Antarctica. In these remarkable places, she films otherworldly life beneath the surface, including the extraordinary lives of microscopic animals. Waldman is the creator and host of "UNEARTHED," an ongoing series on PBS that breaks open the boundaries of nature documentaries, exploring everything from microscopic creatures to the planet's most iconic animals—and even the possibilities of life beyond Earth. Waldman is also a TED speaker and author. For over a decade, she has served as an advisor to NASA on astrobiology, human spaceflight and advanced technologies. In 2013, she was honored by the Obama White House as a "Champion of Change" for her work in citizen science. She lives in San Francisco, California, and enjoys collaborating with researchers to illuminate the unseen corners of our world.

Babak Tafreshi

Science, Photography, Technology, Space

Babak Tafreshi is a science photojournalist and National Geographic Explorer who, since beginning astrophotography in the 1990s, has merged art and science through visual stories. Using photos, videos and 360 immersive media, he has documented breathtaking night scenes from all continents. Since 2007, Tafreshi has been directing a growing team of photographers in nearly 25 countries for “The World at Night” project. His other long-term projects are “Life at Night Atlas” (where, since 2023, he has documented the night-time ecosystem and impact of light pollution) and “From Above & Below” (where, since 2024, he has achieved coordinated Earth-space night photography). His imagery aims to reconnect humanity with the natural world, reveal the wonders of science to public, and connect cultures through common interest in the night sky. In 2009, he received the Lennart Nilsson Award, the world’s most recognized scientific imaging award at the time, and in 2022, he earned the Royal Photographic Society Award and the National Geographic Society’s Wayfinder Award. The International Astronomical Union named the minor planet 276163 — an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter—after Tafreshi, whose interest in astronomy began when he first saw the moon through a telescope as a child in Tehran, Iran.

Benjamin R. Edwards

Adventure, Climate Change, Science, Sustainability

Ben Edwards is a professor of earth sciences and the Walter E. Beach Chair in Sustainability at Dickinson College, in Carlisle PA. His research interests are focused on fire and ice, literally exploring ice covered volcanoes while they are erupting. The majority of his work tries to use volcanic deposits formed from glaciovolcanism to reconstruct Earth’s past climate history, although he has recently begun taking students into the Arctic to show them how to measure the impact of climate change on glaciers, too. He has a B.A. in Geology from Carleton College, a M.S. in Geology from the University of Wyoming, and a Ph.D. in physical and chemical volcanology from the University of British Columbia. Edwards has helped to write more than 50 scientific papers and co-wrote the first book on volcano-ice interactions, Glaciovolcanism on Earth and Mars. Most of these papers examine the structures and histories of specific volcanoes in British Columbia, Canada, in Peru, and in Iceland, as well as erupting volcanoes in Kamchatka, Russia, in Chile, and in Iceland. He has also co-authored papers on glaciers response to climate change, including a chapter in the 2014 Global Land Ice Measurements from Space volume. His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Michigan NASA Space Grant Consortium, Dickinson College, and National Geographic. His most recent NatGeo research on the 2015 eruption of Villarrica volcano is currently being completed with collaborators in Chile.

Beth Shapiro

Wildlife, Science

Beth Shapiro, D.Phil, is Colossal’s Chief Science Officer. Beth joined Colossal after more than two decades pioneering ancient DNA research in academic positions at Oxford University, Penn State University, and most recently the University of California Santa Cruz, where she was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Beth received a BS and MS in Ecology at the University of Georgia and a DPhil in Zoology at Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. An elected member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and th eNational Academy of Sciences, Beth is highly acclaimed for her research and popular science writing, and has been named a Packard Fellow, National Geographic Explorer, and MacArthur Fellow.

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