Three National Geographic Explorers whose work examines water issues across the world come together in conversation on the Amphitheater stage for the Chautauqua Lecture Series and a week on “Water: Crisis, Beauty and Necessity.”

Marc Bierkens is professor of hydrology in the Department of Physical Geography at Utrecht University, whose current research focuses on understanding the global water cycle and how this is impacted by climate change and human water use. To support this work, his group has built a high-resolution global hydrological and water resources model — the results of which are frequently used in public outreach like National Geographic’s World Water Map, and to aid NGOs and companies in water risk assessments through projects like the World Resources Institute Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas.

At Utrecht University, Bierkens served as acting chairman of the Department of Physical Geography from 2009 to 2015, and since June 2021 as Vice Dean of Research for the Faculty of Geosciences. He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and is editor of the journal Water Resources Research. In 2023 he received the Henry Darcy Medal from the European Geosciences Union and the Hydrology Award from the American Geophysical Union. Since 2023, he is also a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Malin Fezehai is an Eritrean/Swedish New York-based photographer, filmmaker and visual reporter who has worked across the Middle East, Africa, Asia and America. In 2023, National Geographic Society and The Climate Pledge announced Fezehai among its latest cohort of grant recipients documenting the global climate crisis. With this grant, Fezehai is examining human adaptations to sea level rise and the experiences of people permanently living on water.

Fezehai’s work focuses on communities of displacement and dislocation around the world. In 2016, she was commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme to photograph survivors of violent extremism across Sub-Saharan Africa, which resulted in her book, SURVIVORS. In 2018, she worked at The New York Times as a visual reporter for the “Surfacing” column.

Fezehai has received a 2015 World Press Photo Award, a Wallis Annenberg Prize, and was named one of the 30 Emerging Photographers to watch in 2015 by Photo District News. Her image depicting a wedding of Eritrean refugees in Israel was the first iPhone photo ever to receive a World Press Photo Award.

Working across South Asia, environmental photographer, artist and writer Arati Kumar-Rao documents environmental degradation that has reached cataclysmic levels. She chronicles anthropogenic changes in landscapes and their fallouts on livelihood and culture — and how drastically depleting groundwater, habitat destruction and land acquisition for industry devastates biodiversity and shrinks common lands, displacing millions and pushing species toward extinction.

Using still and moving images, soundscapes, longform narratives and art, Kumar-Rao has crisscrossed the subcontinent for over a decade, using hard-hitting stories to connect the dots between environmental destruction and the loss of innate resilience in the face of a deepening climate crisis. Her first book, Marginlands: India’s Landscapes on the Brink encapsulates her work thus far on these themes. Marginlands was shortlisted for best first book in the non-fiction category at TataLitLive! Awards 2023, and longlisted for non-fiction at AttaGalatta Bangalore LitFest Awards 2023. Most recently, Kumar-Rao was included as a climate pioneer on the BBC’s 100 Women list for 2023.

Her work has appeared in National Geographic magazine, Emergence magazine, The Guardian, The Hindustan Times, Mint and BBC Outside Source, among other outlets.

Advocates of plastic pollution prevention and National Geographic Explorers Agustina “Tati” Besada and Rachael Zoe Miller join the Chautauqua Lecture Series and its week in partnership with National Geographic, “Water: Crisis, Beauty and Necessity” to share stories of their work in entrepreneurship, science and conservation.

Agustina “Tati” Besada is a sustainability entrepreneur and advocate of plastic pollution prevention. Besada crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a 36-foot sailboat — twice — to research ocean plastics and study international scalable solutions. She transformed this adventure into action co-founding Unplastify, a social enterprise on a mission to change the human relationship with plastic, accelerating systemic change to minimize the use of single-use-plastic. Based in Latin America, Unplastify works on educational programs with youth, transformative projects with companies, and advocacy for new public policies with governments.

Besada also works with NGOs, governments, and regional platforms to promote responsible production systems, resource efficiency, and circular economy. She previously served as the executive director of Sure We Can, a sustainability hub and recycling center in New York City that employs a community of 500 urban collectors and diverts tons of valuable materials from landfills.

Besada was trained as an industrial designer, received a Master in Science in sustainability management from Columbia University’s Earth Institute, and completed an executive program on entrepreneurship at Columbia Business School. She became a National Geographic Explorer in 2018 and has been an Ashoka Fellow since 2021.

Rachael Zoe Miller is a National Geographic Explorer, inventor and Explorers Club Fellow working to protect the ocean through expedition-based science, conservation and storytelling. She is the founder of Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean, a nonprofit addressing marine debris through cleanup, education, innovation and solutions-based research. She is also a co-inventor of the Cora Ball, the world’s first microfiber-catching laundry ball, and sea life artist for Coraclip, a renewable alternative to wasteful virgin-to-landfill plastic bag clips.

Miller leads teams on expeditions whose results are published in peer-reviewed journals and experiences translated into education programs; recent expeditions include sampling the entire Hudson River for microplastics in the air, water and soil; microplastic sampling from onboard the E/V Nautilus in the Hawaiian Archipelago; and research in the Arctic and Antarctic with Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic as a Visiting Explorer/Scientist.

She and her team have received multiple awards and recognition, including Best VideoRay PR Story for using ROVs to find and remove marine debris, being named an Ocean Exemplar by World Ocean Observatory, and winner of the Most Innovative Idea in Microplastics from Think Beyond Plastic.