Live from the Penang Hill BioBlitz – Event #1

Join us for a live Q&A with several of the Penang Hill BioBlitz scientists and tree climbers. We’ll be featuring several of the Australian participants in our first live event from Malaysia, including botanists Jen Sanger and Nathalie Nagalingum, and photographer and tree climber Steve Pearce.

Jen Sanger

Jennifer recently completed her PhD and is a passionate plant ecologist as well as science outreach coordinator. She has spent over 7 years studying rainforests and the charismatic plant species which inhabit them. As an epiphyte ecologist and passionate tree climber, she has spent countless hours exploring the canopies of rainforest trees around the world. Jennifer is also the Project Co-ordinator for The Tree Projects. She has successfully run many other field expeditions in the tropics of Queensland, the snowy highlands of Tasmania and the montane cloud forests of Panama.

Nathalie Nagalingum

Nathalie Nagalingum received her Doctoral degree from the University of Melbourne, Australia, and has worked at Duke University, Harvard University, the University of California Berkeley, and most recently at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney. She was recently appointed as Associate Curator and the McAllister Chair of Botany at the California Academy of Sciences. Her research is focused on understanding the long-term persistence of ferns and cycads—ancient lineages that have survived through multiple episodes of radiation and extinction. To address the history of and processes involved with these episodes, Nathalie has a multi-disciplinary research program that incorporates field studies, fossil data, microscopy/morphology, molecular DNA sequencing, big data and patterns of distributions. Nathalie is particularly interested in adopting novel approaches and techniques in her research.

Steve Pearce

Steven is a renowned, award-winning photographer who specialises in wilderness and adventure photography. Steve is the creative director for The Tree Projects and was the driving force behind all of the deliverable content. Willing to push the boundaries and embrace the latest technologies, Steve is able to deliver content that is unique, beautiful and inspiring. As an avid tree climber and a passionate naturalist, he has spent over 10 years documenting forests, the canopy of trees and the scientists who study them. He was nominated by New Zealand Geographic for New New Zealand Photographer of the Year award and was also a finalist in the 2014 International Travel Photographer of the Year Awards for his work in Eastern Greenland www.stevenpearcephoto.com.