AMS 2026 Program & EVENTs

A full schedule of contributed talks, posters, symposia sessions, and workshops will be posted once abstract submission and program assembly are complete.

Meeting Schedule Overview

Monday 15 June: AMS Council Meeting; Registration; Welcome Reception

Tuesday 16 June: Keynote Speaker; Symposium on Indigenous Mollusc Research, Uses, and Relationships; Contributed talks; Evening poster reception with drinks and appetizers

Wednesday 17 June: Presidential Symposium on Evolution, ecology, and conservation of Pacific Island Land Snails; Contributed talks; Evening Student Awards Fundraising Auction with drinks and appetizers

Thursday 18 June: Symposium on Captive Breeding of Imperiled and Economically-Important Molluscs; Contributed talks; Evening: buses depart from Centennial Hall for Awards Banquet at the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, NY

Friday 19 June: Field Trip: Central NY Geology, Conservation, and Journey Through Devonian Seas

Keynote Speaker

“Indigenous mollusk research, uses, and relationships”

Tuesday 16 June, Morning

We are honored and pleased to welcome Mr. Michael Galban, and members of ESF’s Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, to open our AMS 2026 meeting in Syracuse.
https://www.esf.edu/nativepeoples/people.php

Biography

Michael Galban is the Historic Site Manager of Ganondagan State Historic Site and the Director of the Seneca Art & Culture Center. Ganondagan is a 17th century Seneca town site and is nationally regarded as a center for Iroquoian history, cultural and environmental preservation. His academic research focuses on Woodland Indian art/aesthetics, Indigenous semiotics and burden. Michael is currently enrolled in the Visual and Cultural Studies PhD program at the University of Rochester.

He has served on the board of directors of the Museum Association of New York (MANY) and currently serves on the editorial boards of the New York History and Rochester History Journals and currently sits on the Board of Trustees for the Rock Foundation.

Michael recently collaborated with the Museé du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac on the exhibit “Wampum – Les Perles de la Diplomatie” which opened Spring of 2022 in Paris, of which the corpus of the exhibition traveled to Ganondagan in 2023 as “WAMPUM/OTGO:Ä”. His current exhibition project focuses on German and British officers’ collections of Northeastern Indigenous art formed in the American Revolutionary War Period.

Suggested reading:

Jemison, P., Jacobs, J., and M. Galban. 2022. Wampum: A living tradition. Gradhiva Revue d’anthropologie et d’histoire des arts. 33:118-131. https://journals.openedition.org/gradhiva/6265

Onondaga Nation. Wampum descriptions. https://www.onondaganation.org/culture/wampum/

Panel Discussion

"Collaborating with Indigenous Researchers, Knowledge Keepers, and Communities”

Tuesday 16 June

All are welcome to attend this special panel discussion, which will explore best practices and approaches for non-Indigenous malacologists reaching out to and developing collaborations with Indigenous communities. We invite questions from the audience during this session.

Sponsored by the AMS JEDI Committee

Facilitators:
Dr. Katy Lawson, Marine Zoologist, New York Natural Heritage Program
Dr. T. Rose Osborne, Invertebrate Biologist, Dept. of Lands and Natural Resources, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

Panel Contributors

Dr. Ann Marie Gawel is a Micronesian socio-ecologist whose research focuses on the use, human perceptions, and community ecology of forest species in the Micronesian Islands. She is currently the Eleanor J. Sterling Postdoctoral Conservation Fellow at the American Museum of Natural History. Her love of land snails began in 2002 as a field assistant collecting land snails in Belau (Republic of Palau), and she continues to work on the ecology and conservation of Mariana Island partulid tree snails

Dr. Kyrstin Mallon Andrews is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Syracuse University whose research explores the intersections of human and ecological health in the daily lives of Caribbean fishers. She has worked with dive fishers on the northern coast of the Dominican Republic since 2015, conducting ethnographic research alongside divers at sea and underwater. Her research explores perceptions of risk and embodied ocean health, the culture and politics of maritime borders, and inequities in marine conservation policy.

Details on Symposia, Workshops, Field Trip

Presidential Symposium

• Evolution, ecology and conservation of Pacific island land snails

Contributed Symposia

• Captive Breeding of Imperiled and Economically-Important Molluscs

This symposium focuses on the roles of captive breeding in molluscan conservation, drawing from both conservation and commercial rearing programs. We will emphasize knowledge exchange, capacity building, and cross-sector collaboration. SUNY-ESF also hosts the endangered Chittenango ovate amber snail conservation program, which includes a large captive breeding effort and wild translocations.

• Indigenous Mollusc Research, Uses, and Relationships

This symposium will explore traditional and contemporary Indigenous relationships with molluscs, including cultural uses, restoration efforts, conservation practices, and co-management approaches. SUNY-ESF is home to the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

Workshop

• Land snail identification through dissection (including Succineidae)

Instructor: Dr. Morgan Bullis
USDA APHIS
Hands-on training in anatomical dissection for terrestrial gastropod identification.
If you are interested in this workshop, please contact Dr. Bullis directly

Optional Field Trip (Friday 19 June)

We will spend the morning viewing beautiful Chittenango Falls and learning about land snail conservation through partnerships, including NY State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Then we will go fossil collecting, led by our resident invertebrate paleontologists.

• Chittenango Falls State Park and the imperiled Chittenango ovate amber snail

Marvelous Mollusks: Chittenango land snails

Chittenango Falls State Park

• Journey through Devonian seas: Invertebrate fossil collecting at local sites

Find your own fossil cephalopods, bivalves, gastropods, trilobites, and more!

Awards Banquet Tour

On the evening of Thursday 18 June, Awards Banquet participants will also have the opportunity to tour exhibits at Ithaca’s Museum of the Earth (part of the Paleontological Research Institution), including:

• Marvelous Mollusks: The Secret World of Shells exhibition at the Museum of the Earth

Online exhibition pages: Marvelous Mollusks