The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center is dedicated to understanding, conserving, and championing the grand phenomenon of bird migration.
From saving endangered species to monitoring marine environments, Smithsonian conducts research on the frontiers of science. We harness the best researchers in the world to promote healthy ecosystems, conserve biodiversity, and find ways to predict and mitigate global climate change.
Smithsonian celebrates and promotes artistic and cultural diversity and works to ensure that this diversity will continue to thrive for future generations. Our teams protect cultural heritage at risk, support established and emerging artists, and encourage cultural sustainability.
We create educational resources and programs that ignite curiosity and wonder in people of all ages. Through our museums, research centers, workshops, virtual classrooms and educational labs, we offer opportunities to engage students, teachers, and educational leaders worldwide.
Through the American Spaces Assessment and Redesign Project, Smithsonian experts in education, exhibition design, and public engagement are working with the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs to help connect international audiences with American culture and values at more than 700 locations worldwide.
With the Slave Wrecks Project, the Smithsonian and a group of international partners seek to bring greater awareness to the study of sunken slave ships and build capacity for research and education in the field of maritime archaeology.
When Smithsonian paleobotanist Carlos Jaramillo learned that Panama was expanding its canal in 2006 and blasting 100 million tons of rock to do so, he knew he had to move fast to access all of the fossils that this blasting could uncover. Carlos’ research from this site has led to a new understanding of how species spread across the Americas.
In 2014, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center’s exhibition Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation traveled to New Delhi, Goa, Chennai, and Kolkata in India, in partnership with the U.S. Department of State. This touring exhibition was a part of the U.S. government’s cultural diplomacy efforts in India, opening conversations and breaking down stereotypes to help build closer relationships between the peoples of these two countries.
The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory is working with a group of international partners to build the first of a new generation of the world’s largest and most powerful telescopes.
Spark!Lab demonstrates the central role that invention plays in American history. After its success in Washington, DC, Spark!Lab is expanding to sites around the world.
Smithsonian scientists are using satellite technology to better understand how we can conserve the critically endangered Asian elephant.
In 1996, the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center (SMBC) organized and hosted the First Sustainable Coffee Congress.
After the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Smithsonian worked with a wide array of dedicated, caring professionals from around the world to support the recovery of damaged and at risk Haitian cultural heritage.
The Deep Reef Observation Project (DROP) is a Smithsonian effort to explore life on poorly studied tropical deep reefs and monitor changes in these ecosystems over time.
Smithsonian Marine Biologist Mary Hagedorn leads The Reef Recovery Initiative, a global effort to collect and save threatened and endangered coral reefs.
Smithsonian scientist Adrienne Crosier created a first-of-its-kind cheetah biobank of genetic material in Namibia. Working with local Namibian students and the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), led by Smithsonian Research Fellow Laurie Marker, Adrienne and our international partners are able to increase genetic diversity of the cheetah population.
For more than three decades, scientists at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) have been monitoring the atmosphere and studying ozone, greenhouse gases, and air pollution. Now, with funding from NASA, SAO is developing the first space-based instrument to continuously monitor air pollution across North America.
Through long-term engagement and partnership in Myanmar, scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute are working to ensure the future of the Eld’s deer and conservation of its habitat.
In 2011, Smithsonian paleontologists heard rumors of a large number of marine fossils while working in the Atacama Region of Chile. This site, Cerro Ballena, or “whale hill” in Spanish, contained the skeletons of more than 40 whales and other marine mammals.
In 2010, Smithsonian collaborated with the Sultanate of Oman and the Omani Ministry of Heritage and Culture to transform the Oman Natural History Museum into a powerful educational and scientific resource. Smithsonian and Omani staff developed a master plan for the museum, including a mission and vision, staffing plan, collections management plan, and an organizational plan.
Smithsonian scientists are working to advocate for mangrove conservation by quantifying the role these coastal forests play in climate mitigation.
The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center is dedicated to understanding, conserving, and championing the grand phenomenon of bird migration.
Smithsonian science is laying the groundwork for mangrove conservation.
Smithsonian's Marine Conservation Program is an interdisciplinary research program to understand changes over space and time in commercially and ecologically important coral reef species.
Smithsonian works with international partners to stem the destruction of cultural heritage in Syria and Iraq.
The Agua Salud Project at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama studies how degraded landscapes can be efficiently transformed into productive secondary forests, timber plantations, natural water utilities or eco-friendly livestock ranches. Agua Salud continues a 100-year old partnership between Smithsonian and Panama. This collaborative relationship began in 1910, with the Panama Biological Survey.
Smithsonian works with the Sager Foundation and the Exploratorium to build science capacity in Tibetan monastic communities through the Science for Monks program. The program fulfills a mandate from His Holiness the Dalai Lama to create a mutually beneficial dialogue between Tibetan Buddhist practices and modern science.
Through archival materials in our collections—sound recordings, field notes, books, and artifacts—Smithsonian’s Recovering Voices initiative helps reconnect individuals and communities with their linguistic traditions and sustain endangered languages for generations to come.
For more than 10 years, Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (CFCH) has worked with artisans, local communities, and the Colombian government to document and celebrate the great diversity and beauty of Colombia’s intangible cultural heritage, or living culture.
The Smithsonian’s Arctic Crashes project is an international collaborative study exploring the history of polar animal fluctuations and the shifting scientific, cultural, and public interpretations of human-animal interactions in the Arctic.
The Caribbean Indigenous Legacies Project retells the story of the Columbus encounter and celebrates the survival and vibrancy of Native Taíno culture and people today.
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute marine biologist Hector M. Guzman used satellite tracking data to compare the movement of humpback whales in Panama’s Las Perlas Archipelago with the courses of hundreds of container and tanker ships over the course of six seasons.
In 2013, with the help of Hervé Memiaghe, a Gabonese forest ecologist who traveled to the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) to learn to use dendrometers in his research, two middle schools in Gabon, Africa joined other schools around the globe to contribute to the project.
Smithsonian scientist Melanie McField leads Healthy Reefs for Healthy People, a multi-institutional effort to support conservation of the Mesoamerican Reef by tracking its health and making recommendations to policymakers in order to effect real, positive change for the health of the reef.
Smithsonian is joining with local communities and the Nigerian Montane Forest Project to better understand and conserve montane forests in Nigeria.
Smithsonian researcher Patrick Neale and his lab at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center are studying UV impacts on phytoplankton in the Antarctic oceans to help create models of how phytoplankton respond in various scenarios of climate change.
The Smithsonian-Mongolian Deer Stone Project is demonstrating how researchers can work with local communities to support the restoration and preservation of cultural heritage.
Six Afghan artisans, graduates of Kabul’s Turquoise Mountain Institute, came to Smithsonian’s Freer|Sackler museum throughout 2016 as artists-in-residence showcasing their skills and allowing visitors to experience Afghanistan’s living cultural heritage.
Smithsonian Libraries enabled dialogue about free speech in Iraq through an exhibition of artists’ books as part of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here DC 2016 book arts and cultural festival.
Since 2015, Smithsonian experts have been working with Iraqi cultural heritage professionals to support the recovery and preservation of Iraq’s cultural heritage sites at the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage in Erbil.
With support from the Smithsonian Science Education Center, a hands-on approach to science education in Mexico aimed at the country’s youngest learners has them asking more questions than ever.
As the world’s governments, conservation organizations and Indigenous communities struggle to protect forests and fight climate change, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Fellow Javier Mateo-Vega hopes to build a powerful model for others to follow.
Let’s talk about how we can work together to preserve our natural and cultural heritage.
