Plenary Speakers
The Pathways 2025 Team is thrilled to announce the following plenary speakers.
Speaker Panel: bringing nature home with art
Sunday, September 7, 2025 | 4:00-5:30 PM
ben masters
Director & Founder,
Fin & Fur Films
Biography:
Ben Masters is a filmmaker and writer specializing in wildlife and adventure stories. He is most known for directing Deep in the Heart: A Texas Wildlife Story, The River and The Wall (SXSW 2019 Award Winner) and for producing Unbranded (Mountainfilm 2015 Audience Award Winner). Masters studied wildlife biology at Texas A&M University and founded Fin and Fur Films in 2012. He is the author of two books published by Texas A&M University Press and has written for National Geographic and Western Horseman. A proud Texan, Masters loves riding a good horse through new country, filming wildlife stories that haven’t been documented before, and using movies to help conserve wildlife and wild places.
Presented by Colorado Parks and Wildlife…
The Science and Practice of Wild Awe
Monday, September 8, 2025 | 8:00-9:30 AM
Dacher Keltner
Professor of Psychology,
Co-Director of the Greater Good Science Center & Author
Biography:
Dacher Keltner’s research focuses the biological and evolutionary origins of compassion, awe, love, and beauty, and power, social class, and inequality. As a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab, he is a leading scholar in the study of emotion, including a new project on awe around the globe, as well as power, class, and inequality.
Dacher also serves as the Faculty Director of the Berkeley Greater Good Science Center. In 2020, along with Michael Pollan and others, he co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. The center conducts research using psychedelics to investigate cognition, perception and emotion and their biological bases in the human brain. In addition, Dacher is Chief Scientific Advisor at Hume AI.
Dacher is the author of The Power Paradox, as well as the bestseller Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life and The Compassionate Instinct. He has published over 190 scientific articles, including seminal works on the psychology of awe (Keltner & Haidt, 2003) and is the co-author of two textbooks. He is also co-editor of The Gratitude Project: How the Science of Thankfulness Can Rewire Our Brains for Resilience, Optimism, and the Greater Good. He has written for the New York Times Magazine, London Times, and Utne Reader, and his research has been covered in TIME, Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, CNN, NPR, and the BBC as well as many other outlets. His newest book is Awe: The New Science Of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life.
Dacher has collaborated on projects at Facebook and Google and served as scientific consultant for the Pixar films Inside Out and Inside Out 2. He is featured in Tom Shadyac’s documentary I Am. He has twice presented his research to His Holiness the Dalai Lama as part of a continuing dialogue between the Dalai Lama and scientists. Dacher has received outstanding teacher and research mentor awards from UC Berkeley, and seen 20 of his PhD students and post-doctoral fellows become professors.
Dacher is an outstanding speaker who has received several national research and teaching awards. He is the host of The Science of Happiness podcast which has 50 million downloads and was ranked a top health podcast by Apple Podcasts and a top 10 wellness podcast by Oprah Magazine. Wired magazine has rated the podcasts of his “Human Emotion” course as one of the five best academic podcasts in the country. The Utne Reader named Dacher as one of its 50 Visionaries of 2008. In April 2020 he was voted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
What are the Foundational Elements of Conservation for the Future?
Tuesday, September 9, 2025 | 8:00-9:30 AM
Tony Wasley
President/CEO,
Wildlife Management Institute
Biography:
As President of WMI, Tony serves on the American Wildlife Conservation Partners (AWCP), Council to Advance Hunting and Shooting Sports (CAHSS), and the USGS Cooperative Research Units, National Cooperators’ Coalition (NCC). He is a professional member of the Boone and Crockett Club and The Wildlife Society.
Before joining WMI, Tony served as Director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife for ten years, where he also served as the state deer biologist, an area biologist, and a habitat staff specialist. He previously chaired the North American Wetland Conservation Council (NAWCC), served as President of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA), sat on the Wildlife and Hunting Heritage Conservation Council (a federal advisory committee to the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture), and was president of the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA). He graduated from the National Conservation Leadership Institute, received B.S. degrees in Wildlife Management and Biological Sciences from California State University, Chico, and earned an M.S. in Biology from Idaho State University.
Speaker Panel: the Management of Unique Wildlife Viewing Experiences
Wednesday, September 10, 2025 | 8:00-9:30 AM
will deacy
Large Mammal Ecologist,
Rocky Mountain National Park
Biography:
Will Deacy leads the Large Mammal Ecology team at Rocky Mountain National Park which researches elk, moose, and their relationship to vegetation communities. He earned his PhD in Systems Ecology from the University of Montana in 2016 while studying how Kodiak brown bears react to and use phenological variation in salmon spawning. More recently, he worked for the National Park Service in Alaska to estimate the populations of Dall’s sheep and brown bears in the vast and remote arctic National Parks and Preserves. In the past, he has worked on projects studying desert tortoises, seabirds, Sierra Nevada Red Fox, and wolves.
KrisTal sToner
Executive Director,
Audubon Great Plains
Biography:
Kristal Stoner is a Vice President of the National Audubon Society and the Executive Director of Audubon Great Plains. As lead of Audubon Great Plains, Kristal oversees conservation strategies spanning across the state’s prairies, rivers, working lands, and community building work. Kristal is also responsible for two nature centers, Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center and Iain Nicholson Audubon Center at Rowe Sanctuary where education, bird conservation, and habitat enhancement are elevated. Kristal serves on multiple US Fish and Wildlife Joint Venture Boards where opportunities abound to expand regional bird conservation. Prior to Audubon, Kristal served as the Wildlife Diversity Program Manager at the Game and Parks Commission where she co-wrote and implemented the State Wildlife Action Plan to conserve at-risk species by developing and coordinating initiatives across multiple divisions, landscapes, and public and private partnerships. She also co-lead the launch of the Nebraska Master Naturalist Program that continues to thrive and empower enthusiastic individuals to contribute to conservation. Kristal is an adjunct professor in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and holds a MS in Ecology, Evolution, and Animal Behavior from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and a B.S. in Biology from Nebraska Wesleyan University. She enjoys hiking and birding with her two children and husband.
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