The Biological Impacts of Light Pollution on bird on Wetland Ecology By renown speaker and pioneer researcher Lisa Heschong

Ms. Heschong will describe the problem of “fatal light attraction” whereby artificial light at night (ALAN) interferes with nighttime migration and causes birds to collide with buildings. She will describe how light causes circadian disruption in humans, and the less well understood impacts on the lunar and seasonal cycles of wildlife and plants, and especially implications for local wetland ecology. Lisa Heschong, a Fellow of the Illuminating Engineering Society, is a longtime advocate for ‘healthy lighting’. Her pioneering research showed a strong statistical relationship between more daylight in classrooms and better student performance in elementary schools. She also helped to establish California’s outdoor lighting codes. She speaks frequently on lighting related topics both nationally and internationally. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley and MIT, and currently resides in Santa Cruz.