Naturalist Nights is back for another season of learning, building community, and of course, our famous cookies and tea!
Each winter, our Naturalist Nights speaker series brings in experts to explore topics of the natural world with our community. This year's topic's range from wildlife and public lands to rivers and technology.
The Naturalist Nights lecture series is a partnership with the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES) and the Roaring Fork Audubon.
Presentations are Wednesdays at 6 pm at the Roaring Fork High School in Carbondale and Thursdays at 6pm at ACES' Hallam Lake in Aspen. We also offer virtual options on Thursday nights though Wilderness Workshop's Facebook and YouTube channels and Grassroots TV.
Registration for in-person presentations is greatly encouraged. This registration page Wednesday night's presentation in Carbondale of “The IdentiFlight Technology: Protecting Sensitive Bird Species from Wind Turbine Collisions," by Carlos Jorquera, Chief Technology Officer and Susan Downey, Field Applications Engineer and Chief Birder at Boulder Imaging, Inc. If you plan to attend Thursday night's presentation in Aspen, registration can be found at ACES' website.
Date and Time:
Wednesday, February 7, 6-7pm
Location:
Roaring Fork High School (2270 CO-133, Carbondale, CO 81623)
About the presentation:
IdentiFlight International was created to facilitate the development of the wind-energy business and successful coexistence of avian wildlife and wind energy. IdentiFlight can lessen the pressures upon wind-farm developers and operators by providing a sophisticated tool to detect protected avian species and also provide operators with an effective means to protect select species from collision with rotating wind turbine blades. The IdentiFlight mission is to further growth of renewable energy by minimizing wildlife impacts while maximizing energy production. By empowering wind-farm operators with highly targeted, informed, and objective-curtailment decisions, unnecessary and costly interruptions are avoided and conservation of protected species is achieved.
About the speaker:
Carlos Jorquera founded Boulder Imaging 27 years ago with the goal of merging high-performance imaging technologies with artificial intelligence. His goal was to mimic human perception and solve complex engineering problems in industry and scientific research. Applications for this technology include high-speed inspection for high-volume products, such as currency and architectural materials, and most recently, the IdentiFlight system for protecting sensitive bird species in wind farms. Carlos was born in Chile, studied physics and electrical engineering at MIT, and began his career designing remote-sensing instruments for multiple spacecrafts at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Susan Downey is a founding member and has contributed to Boulder Imaging in many roles throughout the last 27 years, but none have combined her love for nature, birds, and technology as much as her current role in teaching IdentiFlight to become an expert birder. Susan is a Colorado native, studied physics at the University of Colorado, and began her career working for NASA's Galileo mission to Jupiter at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Unable to make the presentation in Carbondale? Catch Carlos and Susan's presentation the following evening in Aspen or virtually through Wilderness Workshop's Facebook and YouTube channels or Grassroots TV.
Photo credit to Neil Hooting via Flickr.