Saint Helena Forum

The Science of Doing GoodIs it a source of joy or is it selfishness?Dr. Abigail Marsh in conversation with Journalist David Freed

Professor Matthew Williams in conversation with Journalist David Freed

About Dr. Michelle Fournet:Michelle Fournet is a National Geographic Explorer, a professor of marine biology at the University of New Hampshire, a behavioral ecologist, and the director of the Sound Science Research Collective. As a bio acoustician, Fournet specializes in listening to the world's oceans and the marine animals who live there. Her research focuses on investigating how animals communicate underwater, and how anthropogenic (man-made) activities are changing ocean ecosystems. Fournet is particularly interested in marine mammals including humpback whales, bowhead whales, harbor seals and bearded seals. Fournet's research experience spans pole-to-pole with expeditions and projects ranging from Antarctica to the Alaskan Arctic, and Hawaii to the Caribbean. However, most of Fournet's research focuses on the calling behavior of humpback whales in Southeast Alaska. She was a longtime resident of Juneau, Alaska where the Sound Science Research Collective was founded and has spent the over 15 years listening to the voices of Alaska's whales. About Douglas Barr: Doug is Board Chair of the Educational Non-profit, Saint Helena Forum. He moved to Napa Valley from Los Angeles in 1997. He is a former vintner, actor, screenwriter, director and producer. Doug believes that the Forum is a step toward making Saint Helena a cultural center for the North Bay and an invaluable resource for the people of our community and beyond.

America’s Immigration Divide: How our country’s current polarization is based upon historic regional linesHistorian and Author Colin Woodard in conversation with  Journalist and Author David Freed.  About Colin Woodard: Colin is a New York Times bestselling historian and Polk Award-winning journalist – is one of the most respected authorities on North American regionalism, the sociology of United States’ Nationhood, and how our colonial past shapes and explains the present. Compelling, dynamic and thought provoking, he offers a fascinating look at where America has come from, how we ended up as we are, and how we might shape our future.About David Freed: Dave is a screenwriter, novelist and former award-winning investigative journalist for the Los Angeles Times where he shared in a Pulitzer Prize for the newspaper's coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and was an individual finalist for the Pulitzer Prize's Gold Medal for Public Service, the most prestigious award in American journalism.  About the Saint Helena Forum: Founded in 2019, the Saint Helena Forum for Innovation and Creativity is a grass roots, entirely volunteer organization, funded by donations and grants from our local Napa Valley friends and neighbors. Our mission is to inform, inspire, and entertain every citizen of the region and beyond by providing access to a broad range of humanities-based presentations.

Dr. Engeln is a professor at Northwestern University where she teaches psychopathology, the psychology of women and gender, social psychology, and the psychology of human beauty. Doctor Engeln  directs the “The Body and Media Lab” which conducts research exploring issues surrounding women's body images. She is the author of "Beauty Sick" a book about the cultural obsession with appearance and how it effects girls and women.  Renee's work has appeared in numerous academic journals, and she is regularly interviewed by the New York Times, the Chicago tribune, the Huffington Post, and other national media.​​​Dr. Engeln will be interviewed by Saint Helena Forum Board Member Michele Mitchell. In addition to being a member of the Forum’s board of directors, Michelle is a filmmaker, journalist, and author, best known for her on-camera reporting for PBS and CNN Headline News, and her documentary films: “Haiti: Where did the Money Go? “ which tracked what happened to the money donated by US citizens to US-based charities after the Haiti earthquake  and ”The Un-condemned “, a riveting documentary about an underdog group of lawyers and activists who defied the odds to do what had never been done: prosecute rape as an international war crime.

Today many U.S. museums are facing a reckoning for their aggressive collecting tactics of the past. The Indiana Jones era is over, and there is tremendous pressure on museums to return any works acquired during the days when collecting could be sometimes better described as looting and plundering. Join the Saint Helena forum for a facinating discussion of this topic between two museum professionals Jane Milosch and Peggy Loar.  

A Conversation with Astrobiologist Dr. Nathalie Cabrol. With more than 300 million exoplanets in the habitable zone of their stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, and up to 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe - to think we are alone or the only advanced intelligent civilization is pretty close to nonsense. Dr. Nathalie Cabrol is a French American Astrobiologist specializing in planetary science. Cabrol studies ancient lakes on Mars, and undertakes high-altitude scientific expeditions in the Central Andes of Chile as the principal investigator of the  "High Lakes Project"  funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute. There, with her team, she documents life's adaptation to extreme environments, the effect of rapid climate change on lake ecosystems and habitats, its geobiological signatures, and relevance to planetary exploration. Cabrol was appointed in 2015 to head the SETI Institute's Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe.

Should we mine the oceans for essential minerals to power green technology?  In our final episode of a three-part series, we explore the fascinating world of international regulations that affect the sea floor.  Governing approximately half of the total area of the world's oceans, the International Sea Bed Authority is, “to exercise oversight of activities that might threaten biological diversity and harm the marine environment”.  James McFarland, Executive Vice President of Strategic Robotic Systems and former head of the Office of Resource and Environmental Monitoring at the International Sea Bed Authority, will be our third guest and help us decipher if and how the ISA is managing to fulfill its mandates.

Should we mine the oceans for essential minerals to power green technology?  In our second interview of a three-part series is with Dr. Lisa Levin, a distinguished professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a marine ecologist who studies ecosystems in the deep sea and shallow water. We’ll ask her to tell us what current science is revealing on the sea floor in the CCZ, and what damage may result from Deep-Sea mining. 

Should we mine the oceans for essential minerals to power green technology?  In our first interview of a three-part series, we explore the pro-mining perspective of  deep-sea mining, with our guest, Gerrard Barron, CEO of The Metals Company. He argues that deep-sea mining could provide a cleaner alternative to traditional mining methods and shares some of his preliminary research conclusions on the impact of his company’s mining methods on marine ecosystems and biodiversity.

A conversation about the composition of the universe with Dr. Jason Rhodes and Dr. Alina Kiessling Dr. Rhodes graduated from West Valley high school in Des Moines, Iowa, earned a B.S. in physics from Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA and an M.A. and Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University. After stints as a researcher at NASA’s, Goddard, Spaceflight Center in Maryland and at Caltech in Pasadena, he landed a position at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His projects include NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, the European Space Agency’s Euclid Mission, and the Vera Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time. All of these are designed to study, “Dark Energy”, the hypothesized cause of the Universe’s accelerated expansion. ​ Dr. Kiessling is a Jet Propulsion Laboratory Research Scientist, investigating Dark Matter and Dark Energy through Weak Lensing Analysis of N-body Simulations. She’s a member of Euclid and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Dark Energy Science Collaboration and was a consultant on NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Science Definition Reports. Alina earned a B.Sc. in Space Science from La Trobe University in Australia and her Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Edinburgh, in the UK.

Bearing Witness - The Reckoning Project Fighting Impunity from War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity A Conversation with War Correspondent and Human Rights Reporter Janine Di Giovanni. Janine Di Giovanni, is the author of eight books, a war correspondent, and Executive Director of the Reckoning Project. She earned her BA at the University of Maine and her MFA at the University of Iowa. She began her reporting career in 1987, covering the first Palestinian intifada for the London Times. Describing herself as a human rights reporter with a focus on war crimes and crimes against humanity, she has reported on genocide in Bosnia, Rwanda, Syria, and was one of the few reporters who witnessed the fall of Grozny in Chechnya. She covered the war in Kosovo with the Kosovo Liberation Army. Reported for The Times and Vanity Fair in Afghanistan and Iraq. After becoming the Middle East editor for Newsweek, Janine began working in Egypt, Kurdistan, Lebanon, North Africa, and South Sudan. In 2022, Janine founded the Reckoning Project, a non-governmental organization that trains conflict journalists and researchers to gather legally admissible testimonies documenting war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Those of you who have followed the Forum know of David Freed's previous discerning interviews, skills he honed as an investigative reporter for The Los Angeles Times. There he served as The Times' lead police reporter, was an individual finalist for the Pulitzer Prize’s Gold Medal for Public Service (the most prestigious award in American journalism) and shared in a Pulitzer Prize for the newspaper’s coverage of the 1992 Rodney King riots.  David has reported from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, and later worked in the intelligence community for the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency, among other federal agencies.  David is also a screenwriter and author of the Amazon- and Audible- best-selling, Cordell Logan mystery-thriller novels.

Join us for a conversation between Mrs. Parks companion and friend, H.H. Leonards  and historian - writer Noah Griffin as they explore the legacy of Rosa Parks. Sixty-eight years ago on December 1, 1955, Mrs.Rosa Parks rejected a bus driver's order to leave a row of four seats in the "colored" section and move to the back of the bus. Her defiance and subsequent arrest sparked a successful boycott of buses in Montgomery a few days later; a pivotal event in the civil rights movement that ultimately led to the dismantling of Jim Crow segregation. Mrs. Parks became an icon of the movement, celebrated for this single courageous act of civil disobedience.But as H.H.Leonard writes, "There was much more to Mrs. Parks than the seat she refused to reliquish on "that" bus. By profession she was a seamstress. Her stiching was delicate and precise; she made beautiful clothes. But in the bigger picture, she sewed pieces of people's lives together throughout the world and lifted them up with tenacity, hope, and pure love.

How can a single fertilized egg give rise to a complex organism with varied cells?  The answers may be found in epigenetics, the study of how cells control gene activity by reading, but not changing the DNA sequence. This episode explores the topic in language the layman can understand with our guest, Dr. Karissa Sanbonmatsu, a structural biologist working in epigenetics at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

A conversation with Colin Woodard, Director of the Nationhood Lab at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. Author of six books including American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. To watch the video of this episode, go to shforum.com

A breakthrough study sponsored by the NIH revealed there are shared genetic markers that underly substance use disorders. These new findings offer a road to more effective prevention and treatment strategies for multiple substance use disorders. To watch the video of this episode, go to shforum.com

The Evolution of Laughter. Across many animals, complex social play is well-documented and laughter (scientists use the term play vocalizations), has been reported in sixty-five species. But seriously, why are we all laughing and what is so darn funny?

Recent Milestones, Current Status and Future Prospects for Nuclear Fusion as a Viable Energy Source with Mordy Rosen of the National Ignition Facility. To watch the video of this episode, go to shforum.com

The James Webb Space Telescope, Planetary Systems, and the Origins of Life with Dr. Stefanie Milam, Deputy Project Scientist For Planetary Science , James Webb Space Telescope. To watch the video of this episode, go to shforum.com

A round table conversation with Bonnie Dow, Bill Persky, Linda Bloodworth-Thomasin and Peter Bergman about the influence of television on the Women’s Movement and American cultural shifts from the 1960’s until today. To watch the video of this episode, go to shforum.com

A conversation with Dr. Beth Shapiro about biodiversity, de-extinction, and ethically reinventing nature to save the planet. To watch the video of this episode, go to shforum.com

All stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end...like life itself. We are all consumers of story and we always have been.  Join us for a look at this universal human experience with story tellers Margot Leitman, Rena Strober, and Jonathan Adler, PhD. To watch the video of this episode, go to shforum.com

Dive into the cosmos with Avi Loeb, the esteemed Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University and a true luminary in astrophysics. With a distinguished career spanning groundbreaking achievements, Loeb has left an indelible mark on the field. Join Doug Barr, Chair of the Saint Helena Forum, in an engaging conversation that delves into the mind of this remarkable scientist and explores the mysteries of the universe. To watch the video of this episode, go to shforum.com

Unearth the hidden legacies of ancient Egypt's formidable female leaders in a captivating podcast episode featuring the distinguished Egyptologist, Dr. Kara Cooney. Egyptologist and UCLA Professor Dr. Cooney uncovers the enigmatic stories of iconic figures such as Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, and Cleopatra. Hosted by museum professional and Forum board member, Peggy Loar, this thought-provoking conversation reveals how archaeology and hieroglyphic texts have unveiled the lives and reigns of these remarkable women, offering unique insights into the society of ancient Egypt while sparking discussions on the relevance of female leadership in our world today. To watch the video of this episode, go to shforum.com

How it’s possible for a dance company founded by a woman born in the 19th century to remain innovative, creative and relevant to an audience born in the 21st?​ Joining the forum was Janet Eilber, former dancer, now Artistic Director of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance and from the company we met principal dancer Xin Ying and soloist Charlotte Landreau and we got to see them dance. ​The discussion was chaired by Douglas Barr, President of the Saint Helena Forum. To watch the video of this episode, go to shforum.com

A lively discussion concerning threats to and the decline of our oceans and possible mitigation and restoration. Host and Forum President Douglas Barr interviews Alexandra Cousteau,  President & Co-founder of Oceans 2050 and Meaghan Brosnan, Director for the WILDAID Marine Program.  To watch the video of this episode, go to shforum.com