Pener Conference: Oysters Crucial To Restore Harbor Health

Pete Malinowski, president and CEO of the Billion Oyster Project, is committed to restoring oysters to New York Harbor, but he’s equally committed to bringing as many people as he can with him on that environmental journey. 

“We like to say that restoration without education is temporary,” said Malinowski, the keynote speaker at the fourth annual James Tufts Pener Environmental Stewardship Conference held April 13 at Thayer Academy. 

The daylong conference — organized this year by Upper School Science Faculty Skip Schneider P ‘20, ‘22, Upper School Science Department Head Kiley Lilly ’08, and Upper School Science Faculty Jack Greene — focuses on student-driven presentations and workshops devoted to environmental sustainability. The event honors the life and legacy of James Pener ‘23. A rising Thayer senior at the time, Pener died in July of 2022 in a car accident in Maine. He possessed a deep passion for the natural world and an authentic optimism for the future, qualities his family sees reflected in the conference. 

“James would be deeply honored,” said James’ father, Mark Pener P ‘23, who spoke to the crowd on behalf of the 38 Pener family members who filled the front row of the CFA’s Hale Theater. “Thank you.” 

During his keynote address, Malinowski said that he co-founded the environmental nonprofit in 2014 with two distinct goals: restoring one billion oysters to New York Harbor and engaging with one million people in the process, all by the year 2035. A recent transformational grant, he told his audience, has shortened the end date for achieving those two goals to 2030. 

So far, said Malinowski, the Billion Oyster Project has restored more than 150 million oysters across 19 acres of New York Harbor and engaged with thousands of students, primarily through its work with more than 100 middle schools across the city’s five boroughs. The educational component is crucial, he said, because people need to feel connected to the waters that surround them before they commit to preserving them. Unfortunately, Malinowski told his audience, most residents of New York City — with current populations of roughly nine million for the city itself and 20 million for the metropolitan area — don’t feel connected to New York Harbor in a visceral sense. 

Malinowski, who grew up farming oysters with his parents and siblings on the Fishers Island Oyster Farm, has always felt that connection. 

“I grew up in, on, and under the water,” said Malinowski, who taught five years at the New York Harbor School and founded that school’s aquaculture and oyster restoration programs. 

Calling oysters a keystone species (an organism that plays a key role in the abundance or lack thereof of an ecosystem), Malinowski asked his audience to imagine a time 400 years ago when Manhattan Island was a dense, thriving forest and the Hudson River Estuary was one of the world’s greatest with 220,000 acres of wild oyster reefs sustaining a vibrant and diverse marine ecosystem. Those days are long gone, Malinowski said, and the same can be said for many coastal cities around the globe. 

“It’s a very common story that we don’t hear that much about,” he said. 

While it’s safe to say that Malinowski is all-in when it comes to oyster reefs and their ability to help New York Harbor — an adult oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water per day — his detailed and nuanced presentation emphasized that oysters are not a miracle fix to water pollution or the perils of climate change. But restored oyster reefs can, he said, be one part of an integrated solution to those problems. 

“There’s no way of knowing if one billion oysters is the right number,” said Malinowski, adding that the figure represents a tiny fraction of how many oysters were present four centuries ago, “but that’s what we’re trying to do.” 

While Malinowski’s talk was both thoughtful and thought-provoking, student scholarship is at the heart of every Pener Conference, and this year’s event proved no exception. In all, students from 10 schools and organizations participated in this spring’s conference, including: 

Thayer Academy

Belmont Hill School 

Buckingham Browne & Nichols School 

Milton Academy 

Roxbury Latin School 

Dana Hall School 

Middlesex School 

St. George’s School 

Archbishop Williams High School

Cohasset Center for Student Coastal Research

Nine student presentations, offered TEDx-style, were held in the CFA’s Hale Theater throughout the day. They included: 

— Using AI for Sustainability: Drone Trash Identification presented by Roxbury Latin’s Ajay Devendran

— The Sound of Biodiversity: How Noise Reshapes Ecosystems presented by Thayer Academy’s Arthur Chen 

— BloomBusters: Biodetecting Toxic Algae Blooms Using CRISPR Technology presented by Thayer Academy’s Shaanveer Gupta, Vidyuth Sathish, and Aashrita Joga

— From Scraps to Sustainability presented by Belmont Hill School’s Suhas Sanjay Kaniyar

— From Awareness to Action: Why Knowing Isn’t Changing Behavior presented by Thayer Academy’s Alyssa McGuirl 

— Expanding EV - A Look at Using Electric Buses in Modern-Day School Transport presented by Thayer Academy’s Alta Randall 

— Sustainability Through the Modern Lens: Using Drones To Create a Greener Planet presented by Belmont Hill School’s Adrian Chen and Ilan Turevskiy 

— Comparative Analysis of Dietary Patterns and Their Environmental Impacts presented by Thayer Academy’s Sadie Borushko 

— From Solheimar to the States: Cultivating a Culture of Sustainability in an Unsustainable Society by Dana Hall School’s Carly Woll and Erin Kennedy 

In addition, the conference offered seven hands-on workshops — six of them led by students — offered at various locations across the Thayer campus. These workshops were: 

— Rooted in Carbon: Protecting Our Coastal Sinks offered by Thayer Academy’s Giavanna Christiano, Katie Donahue, Erin Flaherty-Clapham, Jenny Wong, and Upper School Science Faculty Taylor Sehein 

— Designing a World in Transition: From Everyday PFAS Exposure to Collective Response Through Art, Policy, and Public Space offered by the Cohasset Center for Student Coastal Research’s Elsie Vijjeswarapu and Katie Kenealy 

— Going Green: Making an Indoor Garden at Your School offered by Roxbury Latin’s Ameer Hasan

— Fighting Fast Fashion in 2026 by Buckingham Browne & Nichols’ Tess Neuefeind Lessig and Griffin MacDonald 

— Designing and Painting Your Own Reusable Tote Bags offered by Thayer Academy’s Alex Kaye, Ella Wenger, and Katharine Silvers 

— How Environmental Mapping (GIS) Can Help Us Live and Make More Educated, Sustainable Decisions offered by Thayer Academy’s Declan Bergan and Manny Chikwendu 

— Nature Photography offered by Thayer Academy Upper School Visual Arts Faculty Nicki Pardo

The annual conference, which saw a record turnout of roughly 200 attendees, also featured an oyster tasting courtesy of Island Creek Oysters, an environmental advocacy campaign through letter writing, a meeting of the sustainability clubs of the participating schools, and tours of Thayer’s hydroponic farm. 

In welcoming guests to the conference, Head of School Chris Fortunato P ’26, ’28 noted that the event, with its focus on active student research and collaboration, is in stark contrast to a world where people can feel overwhelmed by problems that, at first, seem too big to tackle. 

“We do this work for one another,” said Fortunato. 

Schneider echoed those comments and added his special thanks to those students from Thayer and participating schools who chose to get involved, either through a presentation or a workshop or simply by attending the conference with their peers.

“You guys all decided to do something,” said Schneider, adding that such commitment to curiosity is in keeping with the legacy of James Pener