This month Dr. Jennifer Smith traveled to Austin, Texas to participate on a panel at SXSW, a conference that features a variety of tracks that allow attendees to explore what’s next in the worlds of film, culture, music, and technology.  The panel explored how novel technology is being used to study coral reefs and inform conservation of these threatened ecosystems, a perfect platform to discuss the 100 Island Challenge project and its global mission. In addition to Dr. Smith, Zachary Rago, a researcher from Exposure Labs and featured in the documentary Chasing Corals , participated as a panelist while JoAnna Klein, a science journalist from the New York Times,  moderated the panel. With such a diverse crowd in attendance, the panel covered a broad range of topics including the biology and ecology of corals, evolution imagery-based approaches in coral reef science, and difficulties conducting science in coral reef geographies.

Read more about the panel in the Daily Texan article here.