Abstract

Modern technologies have given birth to a new “golden age” of exploration, allowing us to go further, digitally stripping away the vegetation, and peer into the earth to reveal stories hidden beneath layers of time. What emerges is a catalog full of the various experiments in human understanding, expression, and imagination. If you remove the concept of linearity in our timeline, the rise and fall of collective knowledge exposes something deeper in our human nature, the unpredictability of our imagined realities. This talk will discuss the enigmas of our individual and collective imaginations.

Dr. Albert Lin is an Associate Research Scientists at UC San Diego and a award winning Explorer of the National Geographic Society. An Engineer by training he has spent the last decade developing and applying technologies towards the exploration of our shared humanity. This journey has taken him from the Arctic Circle to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and from the deserts of the Middle East to the jungles of Central America. For this work Lin has received numerous recognitions including National Geographic’s Adventurer of the Year, the United States Geospatial Intelligence Academic Achievement Award, the Explorer’s Club’s Lowell Thomas Medal, and the Nevada Medal (as the youngest ever recipient). An avid science communicator Lin has created nearly two dozen National Geographic and BBC documentary films, and currently hosts a National Geographic Channel series titled Lost Cities with Albert Lin.