Speakers

The BrewFest Committee will be joining us to share an update on the Rotary Club of Hilo BrewFest, one of our club’s signature fundraising events. During this presentation, the committee will provide an overview of this year’s BrewFest, including planning progress, sponsorships, volunteer opportunities, and how members can help make the event successful.

Important: This meeting is not the BrewFest event itself. The committee will simply be providing an update to the club.

The actual Rotary Club of Hilo BrewFest will take place on July 11.

Hawai'i Environmental Restoration (HER) has been restoring Keau'ohana State Forest Reserve since 2014, under the direction of President and Project Director Cindy Jaya Dupuis, M.S., a tropical conservation biologist and environmental scientist with over 35 years of experience working in Hawai'i. Jaya began her restoration work as a volunteer in the Keau'ohana and Halepua'a Reserves before completing her master’s research at UH Hilo, which examined vegetation patterns across 360 plots throughout Puna's forest reserves. Her personal and academic commitment has since evolved into a long-term community-based restoration project dedicated to protecting this rare lowland rainforest

 

Dr. Burns is a research scientist who studies coral health and disease. His work has investigated the physiological impacts of disease on affected corals and how coral mortality affects the ecology and biology of coral reef ecosystems. John has been continuously searching for both global and localized drivers of coral diseases in order to promote healthy coral ecosystems in the face of global stressors such as climate change. His expertise led to his inclusion in the award-winning documentaries, Chasing Coral, Reefs at Risk, and Island Earth. John has recently developed innovative techniques to create three-dimensional maps of coral reefs to accurately measure how natural and human-induced disturbances impact ecosystem function. John’s research has been presented at scientific conferences around the globe and he has authored multiple publications in international peer-reviewed journals.