During the Plenary Session on Monday evening, Greg Marshall (Vice President for Remote Imaging, National Geographic), will give the opening presentation, “Crittercam: A Wild Point of View.”

Mr. Marshall is a marine biologist, inventor, and filmmaker with more than 20 years experience in underwater exploration, research, and documentation of ocean life. He invented Crittercam, a small, lightweight, and streamlined imaging and data-logging system that can be unobtrusively deployed on free-ranging animals to study their behavior in the wild. This revolutionary research tool records images, sound, and data from the animal’s perspective. Over the last 20 years, Marshall has collaborated with dozens of researchers around the world in Crittercam research to capture previously inaccessible insights into the behavior and ecology of marine species. In 2003, he and his team developed and deployed the first land-based Crittercams on wild lions in Kenya. Altogether, Marshall and his Remote Imaging team have engaged in more than a hundred research expeditions to study more than 50 species. In addition to recording data for basic biological research and conservation, Crittercam’s unique perspective has also captured the imagination of television audiences through National Geographic films. The new discoveries these images convey can stimulate invaluable understanding and empathy for marine and terrestrial species and the many challenges they face. Marshall is a two-time Emmy Award winner for his work on the National Geographic specials Great White Sharks and Sea Monsters: Search for the Giant Squid. He is responsible for more than 60 other National Geographic films including a 13-part series called Crittercam and many episodes of the PBS Wild Chronicles series. Images from his work with emperor penguins contributed to the Oscar-winning film March of the Penguins.