Dr. Dino Martins, Director of the Turkana Basin Institute and research faculty at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University kicks off Earthstock 2025 with his keynote address "Hope Comes From Little Things".
Our lives are connected to millions of other species, as well as to each other. It is the smallest and most overlooked creatures who help keep the world around us running. Insects and plants help nourish and provide the air, water, soil and sustenance that we all depend on. Join us as we travel across the globe to learn from people, landscapes and living things that are woven together in the tapestry of life. Human life and well-being is deeply connected to nature. By seeing and understanding the details and hidden lives of bees, grasses, ants and elephants, we can better see and understand ourselves.
This talk will take us on a journey to the frontlines of biodiversity and conservation and share lessons from the deserts, mountains, grasslands, forests and farmlands of East Africa and Nepal to the Amazon. Dr Martins will share stories and experiences from the frontlines of understanding and connecting with people and nature and why we should remain hopeful about the future of our planet.
Dr. Dino J. Martins has been associated with Stony Brook University for over a decade. As a postdoctoral fellow with the Turkana Basin Institute, he was able to start some of the research and collaborations we will learn about in his lecture today. He has taught for every Stony Brook-TBI Origins Field School since the program began, which has run nineteen times.
Currently, Dr. Martins is the Director of the Turkana Basin Institute. He has research appointments with Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences here at Stony Brook University. He holds a PhD from Harvard University (2011), and a BA in Anthropology (with distinction) from Indiana University (1999).
As not only an entomologist and evolutionary biologist, but also an artist, naturalist, and writer, Dr. Martins seeks to share the wonder and diversity of nature, especially the hidden, beautiful details intrinsic to human life. Teaching people to see, understand, and care about the details of the living world is central to his research and writing.
Communicating science and celebrating biodiversity is one of Dr Martins passions and he has authored several works. His latest natural history book, ‘The Grasses of East Africa’, has been received with wide acclaim and highlights the beauty, diversity, and essential nature of this important group of plants. Dr Martins is currently working on a natural history field guide to the ‘Bees of East Africa’ and two non-fiction books on nature.
Amongst his awards and fellowships are the Ashford Fellowship in the Natural Sciences (Harvard University), and the 2002 & 2003 Peter Jenkins Award for Excellence in African Environmental Journalism. In 2011, he was named one of National Geographic’s ‘Emerging Explorers.’ Dr Martins was elected as a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and an honorary life member of the Kenya Horticultural Society. More recently, he is the 2015 Whitley Gold Award winner for conservation, a grassroots global conservation prize. It was for improving the conservation and understanding of insects across East Africa.
For more information about Earthstock and other events happening at Stony Brook University, please visit https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/earthstock/