An Explorers Club “Stories from the Edge” Speakers Series presentation by CU’s Cassandra Brooks, Ph.D.
6:30 p.m., Thursday, August 27, 2026
Academy University Hill
833 10th Street, Boulder
(free on-street parking available)RSVP by Aug. 24: Rockymountain@explorers.org
How did a girl from small town New Hampshire end up leading science policy and conservation in Antarctica?
Cassandra Brooks, Ph.D., is an interdisciplinary engaged scholar working across marine science, environmental policy, and science communication largely focused on Antarctic conservation.
Learn about the beauty and importance of, the threats, the challenges and opportunities, including the history, of the highest, driest, coldest, windiest continent on earth, and why Antarctica is critical to their own lives.
CU professor Cassandra Brooks, Ph.D., is Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Studies, and Chief Officer, SCAR Standing Committee on the Antarctic Treaty System (SC-ATS). Cassandra is recipient of prestigious Explorers Club 50 recognition as someone the world needs to know about.
She has widely published in science, policy and interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journals, including commentaries in Science and Nature. Further, Cassandra is trained as a Science Communicator through the University of California Santa Cruz and has published more than 175 articles and multi-media stories about marine science and the environment, including in The Seattle Times, Science, and National Geographic.
She met her future husband through her conservation work on the continent and named their kids after Antarctic wildlife: Adélie (a daughter, named after the Adélie penguin), and Orion Ross (a son, named after the Ross Sea).
“The polar regions are experiencing the most pronounced impacts of climate change with repercussions that include sea level rise and potential disruptions of Earth system
“Meanwhile, the Antarctic has emerged as a resource frontier, with international fishing operations increasingly encroaching south. We have very little time to act before changes in Antarctica become irreversible,” she says.
Brooks notes that tourism, after a lull during the pandemic, is coming back with a vengeance, attracting upwards of 120,000 visitors a year (ed. note: despite a cost that can easily top $20,000 per person for a 14-day cruise).
For more information: www.cassandrabrooks.com