Darwin Day CT 2025 – Deep Sea Biodiversity Challenges in the 21st Century

Lisa A. Levin to Headline Darwin Day CT 2025 

For over 40 years, benthic ecologist Dr. Lisa Levin has studied marine organisms adapted for life on the ocean floor, both in shallow waters and the deepest most extreme environments. Global warming, pollution, changes to ocean chemistry, and commercial resource extraction activities are impacting these ecosystems in profound ways, and Dr. Levin has led efforts to bring scientific understanding to international government and management bodies in order to conserve the oceans’ extraordinary biodiversity. 

Lisa A. Levin is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego and former Director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at Scripps. Her current research in-terests include biodiversity of deep continental margin ecosystems including methane seeps, the effects of climate change (especially ocean deoxygenation) and human impacts on the deep ocean, with work on over 50 research cruises. She has contrib-uted to multiple reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the World Ocean Assessments. Professor Levin is a Fellow of the American Ge-ophysical Union and the American Association for the Ad-vancement of Science. She has received lifetime achieve-ment awards from the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography and Western Society of Naturalists and was awarded the Prince Albert I Grand Medal in Ocean Science. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2024. 

Dr. Levin is a co-founder and co-lead of the Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative which seeks to integrate science, tech-nology, policy, law and economics to advise on ecosystem-based management of resource use in the deep ocean and strategies to maintain the integrity of deep-ocean ecosystems within and beyond national jurisdictions. 

The event will be held on Feb. 8, 2026. Cocktails begin at 6PM, buffet dinner served at 7PM. The event location is Pinstripes in the SoNo Collection in South Norwalk. The cost is $55 per person until Jan. 30 and $60 per person afterward. There is also an option to just view the presentation via Zoom for $15.

Register at here.

If you need more information or would prefer to register in an analogue way, please contact John Levin, 646-221-9134 or jlevin6@zoho.com

The mission of International Darwin Day is to inspire people throughout the globe to reflect and act on the principles of intellectual bravery, perpetual curiosity, scientific thinking, and hunger for truth as embodied in Charles Darwin.