We’re excited to announce the lineup for our 2026 Speaker Series!

• Recent Poet Laureate of Wisconsin, Nicholas Gulig, comes for a discussion of his vibrant life, the PBS Wisconsin documentary Welcome Poets of which he’s the subject, and a reading of some of his transformative poems on Thursday, June 4th at 6pm.

• We’re over the moon to welcome Robin Wall Kimmerer on Thursday, June 18th at 6pm! The writer and scientist of international acclaim will be speaking about her wildly influential books, the wisdom of Indigenous knowledge, her Wisconsin ties, and more.

• Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein describes herself scientifically as “a nonlinear combination of theoretical particle physicist, particle cosmology theorist, theoretical cosmologist, and particle astrophysicist.” Get ready for one of the most engaging writers and thinkers on the planet on Thursday, June 26th at 6pm.

• We’re excited to have Jeff Epping discuss his joyful life in garden design on Thursday, July 9th at 6pm. The nationally influential horticulturalist will discuss his new book, The Gravel Garden: Visionary, Drought-Defying, Naturalistic Designs, followed by a signing.

• We’re thrilled to have Sue Breitkopf discussing America’s most influential landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, his son John Charles who designed Yerkes’ arboretum, and the largest concentration of Olmsted landscapes in Wisconsin around Geneva Lake in her talk “Olmsted Landscapes in Lake Geneva: Past Vision, Present Stewardship” on Thursday, July 16th at 6pm.

• The world is wild about mushrooms, so we’re having the celebrated botanist from the groundbreaking Pringle Laboratory, Dr. Anne Pringle, come to Yerkes to talk all things fungi. Her talk is titled “How Does a Lichen Grow? Asking the Wrong Questions and Discovering a Different Path to Immortality” on Friday, August 7th at 6pm.

Click here for tickets