The Plenary Session will be conducted on Monday, May 24, 8:30–10:45 a.m.
Welcome and Opening Remarks. Conference Program Chairs Keith Fields, P.E., PMP, and G.B. Wickramanayake, Ph.D., P.E. (Battelle)
“Sustainable Seas: The Vision, the Reality.” Sylvia Earle, Ph.D. (National Geographic)
“Advancing Environmental Stewardship and Justice Concerns at Site Cleanups.” Mathy Stanislaus (U.S. EPA)
Presentation of Student Paper Awards
Featured Speakers
Sylvia Earle (Marine Biologist and Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic)
“Sustainable Seas: The Vision, the Reality”
Sylvia Earle has been an Explorer-in- Residence at National Geographic since 1998, the year Time magazine named her the first “hero for the planet.” She has pioneered research on marine ecosystems, led more than 70 expeditions, and holds numerous diving records, including the depth record for solo diving at 3,300 feet. She was the first female chief scientist of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and played a key role in establishing marine protected areas globally, including the Northwestern 
Hawaiian Islands National Marine Monument—140,000 square miles of ocean that is home to more than 7,000 kinds of marine life. She has written more than 175 publications, including her September 2009 book, The World Is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean’s Are One. She also edited the 2008 National Geographic book, Ocean: An Illustrated Atlas, a compendium of maps, images and information about the nature of the ocean and the ongoing changes that are influencing life on Earth.
Dr. Earle has received more than 100 national and international awards and honors including the 2009 TED (“Technology, Entertainment, Design”) Prize. The TED Prize is awarded annually to three exceptional individuals who each receive a monetary award and the granting of “One Wish to Change the World.” Her wish was: “I wish you would use all means at your disposal—films! expeditions! the Web! more!—to ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas, hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet.”
In her talk, “Sustainable Seas: The Vision, the Reality,” Dr. Earle will demonstrate how the ocean provides the underpinning of our economy, health, security, and, most importantly, the existence of life itself. Once thought to be infinitely resilient, the ocean clearly is in trouble, and, therefore, so are we. Actions taken in the next ten years to change what we put into and take out of the ocean will matter more than what we do in the next thousand years.
Mathy Stanislaus (Assistant Administrator, U.S. EPA Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response)
“Advancing Environmental Stewardship and Justice Concerns at Site Cleanups”
Mathy Stanislaus began work as Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER) after being confirmed by the U.S. Senate on June 8, 2009. Mr. Stanislaus has an engineering and legal background. As Assistant Administrator, he is responsible for EPA’s programs on hazardous and solid waste management, hazardous waste cleanup including RCRA corrective action, Superfund and federal facilities cleanup and redevelopment, Brownfields, oil spill prevention and response, chemical accident prevention and preparedness, underground storage tanks, and emergency response.
Before joining OSWER, Mr. Stanislaus co-founded and codirected New Partners for Community Revitalization, a New York State not-for-profit organization whose mission is to advance the renewal of New York’s low- and moderate-income neighborhoods and communities of color through the redevelopment of Brownfields sites. In collaboration with community, commercial, government, and nonprofit partners, Mr. Stanislaus led the development of policies, programs, and projects aimed at achieving the remediation and sustainable reuse of Brownfields sites in New York. Formerly, he was counsel for EPA’s Region 2, senior environmental associate in the law firm Huber Lawrence & Abell, and director of environmental compliance for an environmental consulting firm. He has served on the board of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance and has been an advisor to federal government agencies, Congress, and the United Nations on a variety of environmental issues. He chaired a U.S. EPA workgroup that in 1997 investigated the clustering of waste transfer stations in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color throughout the United States. In June 1994, as a member of the UN Environment Programme’s Environmental Advisory Council, he served as counsel to the UN summit that examined environmental issues affecting New York’s indigenous communities of the Haudaunosaunee Confederacy, as part of the UN’s International Year of the Indigenous Communities.