Projects
Tidally United Summit 2025
Date: July 31, 2025
Time: 9:00 AM EDT
Location: Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center, 35 Quay Rd, Key West, FL 33040
Rising sea levels and other environmental changes have shaped our past and will continue to impact our future.
Tidally United is a biennial summit, designed to be an informational think-tank dedicated to raising awareness and exploring future-ready solutions to protect historical sites and other significant cultural resources from climate-related threats.
The 2025 Tidally United Summit will be on July 31st, 2025, at the Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center in Key West!
REGISTRATION
General registration to the 2025 Tidally United Summit is $50 and student registration is $15. The registration button below allows you to register to the meeting, submit an abstract, and order lunch all in one! For the events included in your registration, we ask that you please let us know on the registration form which you plan to attend to help us with event planning. Please register by July 18th to have lunch included.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
We are excited to announce that our keynote speakers for Tidally this year will be Dr. Vibeke Vandrup Martens, Alison Higgins, and Dr. Katey Lesneski.
Photo by Vibeke Vandrup Martens.
Bios
Dr. Vibeke Vandrup Martens is an archaeologist and a researcher (Forsker II) and has worked at NIKU since 2006, originally at the Environmental monitoring Department, subsequently at the Archaeology Department.
Her research focuses on climate change impacts on archaeological preservation, environmental archaeology, geoarchaeology, and in situ preservation.
Her present work focus is on a long-term environmental monitoring programme to ensure long time-series on environmental conditions for the Norwegian medieval towns, MOV BY; she works with impacts of climate change on preservation conditions for cultural heritage and participates in the interdisciplinary research project ‘Future Past’ led by the Archaeological Museum at the University of Stavanger. She is the co-founder of the EAA Community for Climate Change and Heritage (CCH) and a committee member of Climate Change Strategies and Archaeological Resources (CCSAR) within the Society for American Archaeology (SAA).
She has led the interdisciplinary research project CULTCOAST (financed by the MILJØFORSK environmental research programme at the Research Council of Norway) and previously worked in the research projects “Archaeological Deposits in a Changing Climate. In Situ Preservation of Farm Mounds in Northern Norway” (InSituFarms), Cultural Heritage and Water Management in Urban Planning’ (UrbanWATCH), and “In Situ Site Preservation of Archaeological Remains in the Unsaturated Zone” (In Situ SIS). Martens carries out environmental monitoring projects both within and outside the urban areas on archaeological sites from all periods.
Martens has published papers on global challenges, climate change adaptation, deposit monitoring, green transition and archaeology, rural medieval settlements, and on medieval pottery. She holds a position in the editorial board of Collegium Medievale, and she is an active participant at international archaeological conferences globally.
Martens has a PhD in geoarchaeology from the VU University of Amsterdam (NL) and a background in medieval archaeology from the University of Lund (SE) and Aarhus University (DK). Her work experience as an archaeologist, curator and researcher comes from the Museum of Cultural History in Lund (SE), the Copenhagen City Museum (DK), the Government of Åland (FI), the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo, and Vestfold County Archaeology (NO). She enjoys reading, gardening, cooking, listening to music, and playing with her cats.
Alison Higgins has served as the Resiliency Manager for the City of Key West for 13 years, dedicated to reducing the carbon footprint of residents, businesses and agencies islandwide. From biodiesel to bikes, community gardens to greywater, solar water heaters to stormwater infrastructure, and adapting Key West to rising sea levels, Alison gets to cover it all. Alison received her M.A. in Environment and Community from Antioch University-Seattle while working full-time in the Florida Keys. Her enthusiasm for her studies became the underpinnings to her success as volunteer Executive Director of GLEE (Green Living & Energy Education) and her climate change work with her previous employer of 14 years, The Nature Conservancy. Alison has personally been responsible in directly obtaining over $5.7M in grant awards. Dedicated to forging partnerships, Alison traveled to Washington D.C. to receive a Power of Partnership Award from the US Fish & Wildlife Service Secretary in 2006. In her off hours, Alison also overcommits her time babysitting pets, brewing beer, and winning awards for awesome parade creations!
Dr. Katey Lesneski joined the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in late 2022 as the Mission: Iconic Reefs Research and Monitoring Coordinator via Florida International University. Prior to moving to the Keys with her potcake pup Dogtor Pepí, she was the Director of Restoration Science at Coral Vita in Freeport, Grand Bahama.
Katey holds a B.S. degree in Geo-Biology from Brown University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Boston University, where she studied the ecology, physiology, and gene expression of populations of the endangered staghorn coral in Belize, under transplantation scenarios. She has worked as a Divemaster at Key Dives, and participated in the full field survey on the post-Hurricane Irma rapid reef assessment efforts in 2017, as well as the OceanX Saving America’s Great Barrier Reef survey in 2019.
She is excited to use her background in applying science that informs reef restoration practices for the ambitious Mission: Iconic Reefs project. She enjoys freshwater fish husbandry, gardening and plant cultivation, reading sci-fi novels, and just about any watersport.