2024 Northwest Straits Conference
The 2024 Annual Northwest Straits Initiative Conference will be held at the Delta Hotel in Everett, Snohomish County from November 15-16, 2024. Please check this website for updates on the agenda, speakers, and other information related to the conference. We look forward to seeing you there!
Please continue to check this webpage for updated information on the agenda and speakers, and stay tuned for registration, which will be open in August!
To make a reservation at the Delta Hotel, please contact ____. If you have any questions about making a reservation, please contact your MRC staff lead or Caitlyn Blair.
Keynote Speaker
Join us on the evening of Friday, November 15, 2024, to hear from our keynote guest Dr. Elin Kelsey, presenting on
The Practice of Evidence-Based Hope: Countering Climate Doomism and Eco-Anxiety to Amplify the Resilience of the Salish Sea
Elin Kelsey, PhD, is a leading spokesperson, scholar and educator in the area of evidence-based hope. Elin’s work focuses on the reciprocal relationship between humans and the rest of nature, particularly in relation to the emotional implications of the narrative of environmental doom and gloom on children and adults. Her influence can be seen in the hopeful, solutions-focus of her clients including the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and other powerful institutions where she has served as a visiting fellow including the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Passionate about bringing science-based stories of hope and multi-species resilience to the public, Kelsey is a popular keynote speaker and media commentator. In 2014, she co-created #OceanOptimism, a twitter campaign to crowd-source marine conservation solutions which has reached more than 95 million shares to date. In 2019 she served as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University in the Graduate School of Education, bringing a critical emphasis on hope to an interdisciplinary think tank on environmental issues. As an Adjunct Faculty member of the University of Victoria School of Environmental Studies, she is spearheading the development of a solutions-oriented paradigm for educating environmental scientists and social scientists. She is a feature writer for Hakai Magazine and a best-selling Children’s Book Author. She enjoys serving as an author in residence in schools and leads environmental workshops for teachers, and kindergarten through university students, across North America and around the world. More about her and her work can be found at Elin Kelsey & Co.