Salem State To Host 47th Annual Darwin Festival

SALEM, MA — A series of lectures and webinars on everything from climate justice for species affected by sea level rise, to how indigenous perspectives can inspire ecological discussions, will be part of the 47th annual Darwin Festival at Salem State University next week.

The Darwin Festival will run at Salem State from Feb. 9 to Friday, Feb. 13, with five in-person lectures in the Ellison Campus Center’s Vets Hall, and five webinars that will connect attendees in Salem with lecturers from around the world.

"(The Darwin Festival) covers the span of evolutionary biology," said Ryan Fisher, chairperson of the biology department. "We've had everything from 21st-century molecular talks to going back to one of the first places Darwin started to think about evolutionary change: the Galapagos Islands."

A webinar from London's Natural History Museum, where a curator of the museum's British and Irish Herbarium will give this year's Founder's Lecture on Darwin's relationship with the museum will kick off the festival on Monday at 11 a.m.

Other talks include “Sea Level Rise and Multispecies Climate Justice,” which will dive deep into how climate change and sea-level rise impact nonhuman species, and “Evolving Worldviews and their Impacts: Bringing in Indigenous Perspectives,” a talk exploring resiliency by spotlighting that of indigenous culture persisting for millennia.

The week also includes an Alumni-Student Social on Feb. 12 from 6:30 to 9 p.m. in the Ellison Campus Center's commuter lounge.

To register for lectures being held online, visit the official Darwin Festival webpage here.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)