2026 Lear-Conant Symposium
April 10 - 11th, 2026

Sea Level Rise: Measurement, Understanding, Adaptation

Sea level rise, accelerated by climate change, will pose major challenges to densely populated coastal regions over the coming decades. Sea level rise will also have ecological and human impacts on coastal Connecticut and in the Long Island Sound region. Relative sea level – the height of the sea level relative to land at a particular place – is a complex phenomenon affected by many variables, including water temperature, global sea level rise caused by melting ice, sedimentation, coastal infrastructure, and land subsidence. This Lear-Conant Symposium will bring together researchers from different fields who are all thinking about sea level, how we measure it and understand it, and what it means for human and ecological communities. This symposium builds on the strong tradition at Connecticut College of coastal salt marsh ecology and research on the impacts of seal level changes on tidal wetlands. The symposium will also provide an opportunity to discuss and explore what it means to care for places and communities that will be affected by sea level rise.

About Our Symposium Series

The Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment sponsors biennial conferences focusing on various environmental topics. Experts from academia, government, industry and non-governmental environmental organizations are brought together for an in-depth, interdisciplinary evaluation of the issues. Symposia are open to all students as well as the general public.

The Lear-Conant Symposium was established in 2002 by a gift from Linda J. Lear '62 to provide biennial symposia through the Goodwin-Niering Center. The symposium honors the legacy of Elizabeth "Babs" Conant '51, an evolutionary zoologist, who served the College as Assistant Professor of Zoology, Dean of Sophomores, and Trustee from 1982-1992. Conant was awarded the College Medal in 1995. Trustee Emeritus Linda J. Lear ’62 is a Biographer, historian and author of Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, a nationally acclaimed biography of pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson.