General Sessions

Preceding her appointment, Williams served as the Director of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks from 2017 to 2020. There, she delivered leadership that embraced the diversity of Montana’s natural resources and outdoor recreational values that also incorporated public expectations and values into the agency’s direction.

Following a 13-year career as a professional staff member of the former Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries in the U.S. House of Representatives, Dan held positions of increasing responsibility at the Service. They include assistant director for external affairs, chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System, science advisor to the director and deputy director.
 
Dan earned a bachelor's degree in biological science from Florida State University and a graduate degree in marine affairs from the University of Washington, where he studied under a fellowship from the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation. His master's thesis, on estuarine wetland mitigation, was published in the Coastal Zone Management Journal in 1982.
 
Dan’s journey to the greater D.C. area was made possible by the National Sea Grant College Program. He was awarded a National Sea Grant Congressional Fellowship in 1982.

In addition to leading local conservation efforts, Castro is known globally for contributing staff and resources for the advancement of international conservation work.

Castro has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Zoology and a Master of Science Degree in Environmental Studies.

Castro has been a member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) since 1985 and has served on the Diversity Committee, Ethics Committee, and was Chairman of both the Government Affairs and the Wildlife Conservation and Management Committee, which is now known as the Animal Population Management Committee. He is currently serving a second term on the AZA Board of Directors, having previously served on the Board during 2009 – 2011. Castro has also served as an AZA Executive Leadership Development Program mentor.

He has been a member of the Zoo Conservation Outreach Board, serving as Chairman in 2006 and 2007. He served on the Board of the Foothills Community Foundation from 2012 – 2017, serving as Chairman from 2015 – 2017.  He was appointed by President Obama to serve on the Institute of Museum and Library Services Advisory Board and served from 2012 - 2017.

In 1977, she established the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) to advance her work around the world and for generations to come. JGI continues the field research at Gombe and builds on Dr. Goodall’s innovative approach to conservation, which recognizes the central role that people play in the well-being of animals and the environment. In 1991, she founded Roots & Shoots, a global program that empowers young people in nearly 60 countries and since its inception in 1991 has greatly impacted youth in over 100 countries to act as the informed conservation leaders that the world so urgently needs.

Today, Dr. Goodall travels the world, speaking about the threats facing chimpanzees, environmental crises and her reasons for hope. In her books and speeches, she emphasizes the interconnectedness of all living things and the collective power of individual action. Dr. Goodall is a UN Messenger of Peace and Dame Commander of the British Empire.

For more information, please visit www.janegoodall.org.

Susan Goldberg is Editor in Chief of National Geographic and Editorial Director of National Geographic Partners. As Editorial Director, she leads all journalism across platforms, including digital journalism, magazines, podcasts, maps, newsletters and Instagram. She was named Editorial Director in October 2015 and Editor in Chief of National Geographic Magazine in April 2014. She is the 10th editor, and first female editor, of the magazine since it was first published in October 1888.

Under her leadership, National Geographic has been honored with ten National Magazine Awards, including four awards in 2020 and the top prize for General Excellence in 2019. In 2020, National Geographic also was named the Webby Media Company of the Year, with a total of 15 awards, as well as earning the Gold Medal as Brand of the Year for the Society of Publication Designers, the most prestigious award for visual journalism in the industry. In addition, National Geographic was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography in 2021, Feature Photography in 2019 and for Explanatory Reporting in 2017. The magazine has received numerous other awards for photography, storytelling and graphics. Goldberg also has led reporting that was honored with multiple local, state and national awards, including the Pulitzer Prize at the San Jose Mercury News (1990/Breaking News), and four finalists for the Pulitzer at The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer (2008/Commentary; 2009/Feature Writing and Commentary; 2010/Commentary).

Before her employment at National Geographic, Goldberg was executive editor for federal, state and local government coverage for Bloomberg News in Washington. From 2007 to 2010, she was editor of The Plain Dealer, the daily newspaper of Cleveland and the largest newspaper in Ohio. Prior to that, from 2003-2007, she was the executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News, and served as the paper’s managing editor from 1999-2003. From 1989 to 1999, Goldberg worked at USA Today, including stints as a deputy managing editor of the News, Life and Enterprise sections. Previously, she worked as a reporter and editor at the Detroit Free Press. She began her career as a reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. A Michigan native, Goldberg has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Michigan State University, where she now funds the Susan Goldberg Scholarship at the university’s College of Communication Arts and Sciences’ School of Journalism.

In addition to awards for journalism, Goldberg has been recognized repeatedly for leadership. In 2013, she was voted one of Washington’s 11 most influential women in the media by Washingtonian magazine; In March 2015, Goldberg received the Exceptional Woman in Publishing Award from Exceptional Women in Publishing. In 2017 and again in 2019, Washingtonian named Goldberg among the most powerful women in Washington across professions. In 2020, InStyle magazine included Goldberg on its “Badass 50” list, naming her as No. 7 in its issue about “women who are changing the world;” she was selected as one of Folio’s Top Women in Media for having an “exceptional impact” on the direction of the industry; and she was recognized by the International Women’s Media Foundation as the Leadership Honoree for her work in uplifting women journalists and telling under-reported stories.

Goldberg lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Geoffrey Etnire, a real estate lawyer. They have one grown son.

Dan is the President and Chief Executive Officer of our organization of more than 230 aquariums, zoos, science centers, and more than 6,000 individual members. With his team of staff members and over 400 committee member volunteers, Dan is charged with advancing AZA’s vision, mission, and strategic priorities.
 
A lifelong animal conservationist, Dan joined AZA in January 2017 after serving as the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for nearly six years, successfully leading the agency, and its thousands of employees, during a period of significant challenges. Following a 13-year career as a professional staff member of the former Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries in the U.S. House of Representatives, Dan held positions of increasing responsibility at the Service. They include assistant director for external affairs, chief of the National Wildlife Refuge System, science advisor to the director and deputy director.
 
Dan earned a bachelor's degree in biological science from Florida State University and a graduate degree in marine affairs from the University of Washington, where he studied under a fellowship from the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation. His master's thesis, on estuarine wetland mitigation, was published in the Coastal Zone Management Journal in 1982.
 
Dan’s journey to the greater D.C. area was made possible by the National Sea Grant College Program. He was awarded a National Sea Grant Congressional Fellowship in 1982.

As President and CEO of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) since 2012 and since joining the organization in 1997 as its Executive Vice President, Azzedine Downes has worked closely with experts and decision makers from around the world, leading a groundbreaking period of geographic expansion and strategic consolidation. 

Influencing international policies to create positive change on the ground, Azzedine led the signing of a historic lease agreement with a Maasai community near Amboseli National Park in Kenya, securing 16,000 acres of habitat for elephants, while helping to establish a first-of-its­kind cooperative framework between IFAW and INTERPOL's Environmental Crime Program. 

Before joining IFAW, Azzedine served as the Chief of Party for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Jerusalem and Morocco and as the Acting Regional Director for the United States Peace Corps in Eurasia and the Middle East. In 2015, Fast Company named him one of the "The Most 100 Creative People in Business," and he has been listed among The NonProfit Times's "Power and Influence Top 50." A graduate of Providence College and Harvard University, Azzedine is fluent in Arabic, English, and French.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Juliet Eilperin is a born-and-bred Washingtonian who has worked on The Washington Post’s national desk for more than two decades. In that capacity, she has covered the White House, Congress, the environment and a host of domestic and international policy matters. Ms. Eilperin now serves the Post’s senior national affairs correspondent, focusing on forces shaping the nation’s energy and environmental policies.

Previously, Ms. Eilperin served as the Post’s White House bureau chief. Before covering Obama’s second term in office and the 2008 presidential election, she spent nine years as the Post’s national environmental reporter. She began her career as the Post’s House of Representatives reporter, where she covered the impeachment of Bill Clinton, lobbying, legislation, and congressional campaigns. 

In the spring of 2006 Rowman & Littlefield published her first book, “Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship is Poisoning the House of Representatives,” which has been featured on NPR’s “Fresh Air with Terry Gross” and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” In June 2011 Pantheon published Ms. Eilperin’s second book, “Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks,” which has been featured in Smithsonian, Popular Science and People magazines. 

She shared the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting and received the D.C. Environmental Film Festival’s Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2019. In 2011 she received the Peter Benchley Ocean Award for Media. In the spring of 2005, she served as the youngest-ever McGraw Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. Ms. Eilperin graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 1992, where she received a bachelor’s in Politics with a certificate in Latin American Studies.

Carl Safina’s lyrical non-fiction writing about the living world has won a MacArthur “genius” prize; Pew, Guggenheim, and National Science Foundation fellowships; book awards from the National Academies, the Lannan Foundation, and Orion Magazine; and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. He grew up raising pigeons, training hawks and owls, and spending as many days and nights outside and on the water as he could. Safina’s studies of seabirds earned him a PhD in ecology from Rutgers University. He is the first Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University, and founder of the not-for-profit Safina Center. His writing appears in the New York Times, Time, Audubon, National Geographic, on the Web at CNN.com, Medium, HuffPost and elsewhere, and his PBS series Saving the Ocean can be viewed online. Two of his books have been New York Times Notable Books of the Year, including his 2020 book Becoming Wild; How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace.
Carl lives on Long Island, New York, with his wife, Patricia, and their dogs and feathered friends.

His writing appears in the New York Times, Time, Audubon, National Geographic, on the Web at CNN.com, Medium, HuffPost and elsewhere, and his PBS series Saving the Ocean can be viewed online. Two of his books have been New York Times Notable Books of the Year, including his 2020 book Becoming Wild; How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace.