Our Jeanette Ross Environment Lecture for 2025 will feature Rachael Zoe Miller, National Geographic Explorerand Explorers Club Fellow on Thursday, March 13, 2025, 7:00 PM via Zoom. Rachael will share with us how she and her team are working to keep both macro and microplastic out of our public waterways.

If you look for our trash, derelict fishing gear and microplastic in any aquatic environment, you will find it. This pollution is nearly ubiquitous and making its way through the marine and human food web – and onto our plates and into our bodies. 

Rachael and her team at the ocean-protection nonprofit Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean have been at the leading edge of marine debris and microplastic research, data-driven cleanups, solution development and solution implementation since 2010. They use a combination of expedition science, innovation and education to make an impact from the surface to the seafloor in urban, inland and coastal waters worldwide from the shores of Lake Champlain in their home state of Vermont, down the length of the Hudson River, remote islands in the Gulf of Maine, the North Pole to Antarctica and thousands of miles in between.

Learn about Rozalia Project’s solutions-oriented programs, Rachael and her team’s work in developing the Cora Ball, a consumer-scale solution to microfiber pollution, pioneering marine-debris-related educational programs, widely cited scientific work and CSI for the Ocean, a global citizen science microplastic mapping and monitoring program. She will leave you with actions everyone can take to protect our precious freshwater lakes and rivers and the one, big ocean toward which they flow. 

This event is FREE but receive the Zoom link please register CLICK HERE

More about our presenter:

Rachael Zoe Miller is a National Geographic Explorer, inventor and Explorers Club Fellow working to protect the ocean through expedition-based science, conservation and storytelling. She is the Founder of Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean, a nonprofit addressing marine debris, co-inventor of the Cora Ball, the world’s first microfiber-catching laundry ball and creator of CSI for the Ocean, a global citizen science microplastic mapping and monitoring program. Rachael leads teams on expeditions whose scientific results are published in peer-reviewed journals and education programs that inspire thousands of all ages. She is a Visiting Scientist with National Geographic-Lindblad Expeditions joining expeditions to investigate microplastic and microfiber in the Arctic and Southern Ocean. She’s presented at myriad events, including TedX, MIT’s Water Summit, World Ocean Forum, at the Chautauqua Institution and in multiple countries as part of the US State Dept.’s International Speaker Program. Rachael captained the 60’ sailing research vessel, American Promise, trained Navy SEALS to use underwater robots, mentors young scientists at the New York Harbor School and is an ambassador for the Scottish Seabird Centre. She grew up in the lakes and rivers of upstate New York, lives in Vermont and loves human and wind-powered water sports.

NOTE: Prior to  the webinar the Zoom connection link will be emailed to those that register so email is required. The presentation will be recorded and all those that register will receive a link to the recording and related materials as a follow-up. Personal data collected will not be shared with third party vendors but is needed to share webinar materials. 

For additional Environmental Information visit:

• The LWVCDC Issue Page - Environment and Natural Resources

• The Delaware County Environmental Clearinghouse - envirodelco.org sponsored and operated by the League of Women Voters of Delaware County, provides detailed and accurate information about what is happening environmentally in Delaware County as well as practical information about what each of us can do to improve our own environment.

• National Geographic Expeditions - www.expeditions.com

NOTE: The Jeanette Ross Environmental Series is named for Jeanette Ross who was an advocate for our environment and a leader of the League of Women Voters in our region and state. She was President of LWV Media Area in 1997 and served on the Delaware River Authority and helped develop the report and environmental impact study for the Delaware River Basin Commission (1981).