We are honored to welcome Laura Pustarfi, Ph.D. to the Salon. Laura is Director of the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research Certificate Program and a lecturer in Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Her work bridges plant studies, integral ecology, environmental philosophy, and psychedelic scholarship. She is co-editor of The Wisdom of Trees: Thinking Through Arboreality and serves on the board of The Plant Initiative, with ongoing contributions to the Plant Perspectives journal. Laura brings a rare blend of rigorous scholarship, ecological insight, and artistic sensibility to her work and teaching.

It was an honor to have Dr. Robert Mutisi from Zimbabwe as our guests at the Salon. Robert is a professional forester who specialises in commercial and social forestry plantation development. A passionate beekeeper and trainer who contributes to improved African beekeeping systems that addresses sustainable issues related to poverty, hunger, and the environment. Robert has pioneered a Nature-based Beekeeping approach in Zimbabwe where communities in marginal areas have realised their potential. The use of low-cost hives made from local material, bee ecology and native species, inclusivity, non-hive centric, scalability and sustainability have been key issues around Nature-based Beekeeping. He holds an MBA, MALIC (Master of Arts in Leading Innovation and Change), and a PhD degree in Agriculture focusing on honey production and marketing and several international qualifications on development work. Robert is also a beekeeping article writer that comes out in professional journals, honey steward and judge and an international speaker on issues related to African beekeeping systems. More info about Robert's work at Working for Bees and at robertmu@mbd.co.zw.

It was an honor to have Bas Blaasse as our guest at the Salon. He is a writer, researcher, and filmmaker based in Brussels. His work explores the intersections of art, visual culture, philosophy, and ecology-often tracing connections between aesthetic practices and the conceptual or material realities they engage with. Together with artist Aladin Borioli, he published the book "Bannkörbe", an anthology of ceremonial use of masks in historical beekeeping. His current research focuses on collective practices in the arts and the historical development of the notion of landscape. He is also working on a documentary about nature management in the Netherlands. Bas studied philosophy in Leuven and Berlin and photography in Breda, and he received the 2023 C/O Berlin Talent Award in Theory.

It's an honor to have Dr. Keith S. Delaplane as our guest. Keith is Professor Emeritus of Entomology at the University of Georgia where he served as Director of the honey bee program there between 1990-2024. Research by Keith, his students, and coworkers resulted in hundreds of publications including over 70 refereed research papers, 7 books, and 5 book chapters ranging across basic honey bee (and termite) biology, health management, pollination, and social evolution, garnering over 6300 citations by peers around the world. His latest book, Honey Bee Social Evolution was published in October 2024. In 2014 he was inducted into the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his honey bee research and education efforts throughout the UK. Keith and his wife Sonja live in Athens, Georgia, where they keep a few bee hives in their back yard in the Normaltown neighborhood.

Jovana Bila Dubaić is a  Doctor of Environmental Sciences at the Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade. Her scientific field covers biodiversity protection and invasive species ecology.  Her PhD thesis topic covered “Diversity of the Wild Bees in Belgrade: faunistic overview, patterns of distribution and status assessment of the chosen group population”.

More about the research she does at the Faculty read here https://srbee.bio.bg.ac.rs/srbee and her instagram page can be found at: belgrade.bees.ecology

In this Podcast we talk with Jovana discussing her work with free-living bees and in particualr her use of citzen science and direct engagement with the public.