ScienceOnline 2012 Opening Morning

Mireya Mayor opened the ScienceOnline 2012 conference.
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Durham NC
Inside Science Contributor

The keynote address this morning to open up the ScienceOnline 2012 conference was given by primatologist, conservationist, former reality TV'er, and National Geographic emerging explorer Mireya Mayor, who opened the ScienceOnline 2012 conference with a somewhat interesting presentation covering her career and work as a researcher.

I've attended all five previous ScienceOnline conferences, and initially I found the choice of keynote speaker for this year's conference to be a bit off for this audience -- especially when considering that Mayor was giving her presentation at a university that is one of the top producers in the country of STEM graduates -- but she eventually earned the crowd's respect after highlighting her role in discovering one of the smallest primate species, a lemur from Madagascar.

Video and picture taking was prohibited during her presentation, likely due to her affiliation with NatGeo, but she provided an interesting open to one of the most informative and interesting science conferences held -- one that I'm especially looking forward to diving into this year.

Additional updates to follow.