Dome Talks Speaker Series featuring Emily Lindsey

Dome Talks are back! During this summer series held in our iconic dome, authors, and scientists from across the region share their work, research, and ideas in an informal, engaging setting. Topics span science, history, and the world around us, offering fresh ways to think about big questions, from our place in the universe to the forces shaping life on Earth. Dome Talks will take place in the Fisk Gallery.

Thursday, August 27, 2026
Emily Lindsey (La Brea Tar Pits)
Fall of the Titans: What became of the world’s Ice Age giants and what does it mean for our future?
Throughout most of the 66-million-year history of the Age of Mammals, large mammals dominated Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems.  But at the end of the last Ice Age, between ~50,000 and 10,000 years ago, most of these “megafauna” suddenly disappeared.  This event constituted the largest wave of extinctions since the dinosaurs died out, and coincided with major global changes, including a rapidly warming climate, the reorganization of floral and faunal communities, and the spread of human populations around the world.  But despite decades of research, scientists are still debating the role each of these processes played in the loss of these iconic animals, largely because the timing of the extinction event is not well-resolved enough to tease apart these closely-linked phenomena.  In this talk, I will discuss recent advances in our efforts to elucidate the timing, causes, dynamics, and consequences of the Ice Age extinctions, and how these discoveries can inform our understanding of ecosystem change and biodiversity loss today.

Dr. Emily Lindsey is Associate Curator and Excavation Site Director in the Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research at La Brea Tar Pits.  Dr. Lindsey studies how climate change and human actions intersect to drive extinctions, using the collapse of global ecosystems at the end of the Ice Age as a model.  She is a leading expert on Ice Age animals of the Americas and has authored more than 30 scientific papers. Dr. Lindsey holds an AB in Biology from Brown University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a Fulbright scholar to Uruguay. A passionate science communicator, she lectures widely and has been featured in numerous media outlets from the New York Times and NPR to ESPN and Netflix.  She has conducted fieldwork in the United States, Antarctica, Chile, Guyana, Ecuador, and Peru, where her current research involves seeking clues to ecological tipping points preserved in the rich asphaltic fossil localities of the Neotropics. 

Doors open at 6:30. Talk begins at 7:00.

Tickets are first come first serve. Purchasing ahead on Eventbrite is encouraged.

General Admission – $20, plus processing fees

Members – $17, plus processing fees

Parking is free, and the museum is accessible to persons with disabilities.