Conference Details
Please register by Aug 1! If you need to register after August 1, we cannot guarantee the full conference experience. Please reach out to our host if this is necessary.
Visit the Delegate Registration page to register for the conference.
Schedule Overview for 2026 SEPA-WAC in Cartersville, GA
Tuesday
Registration
• 8:00am–1:00pm: @ Conference Center
• 3:00–6:00pm: @ Bistro in Hotel
If these times don’t work for you, please email Kat at president@sepadomes.org to make alternative arrangements.
• 7:00 – 9:00am: Breakfast @ Hotel Bistro
• 8:00am–12:30pm: Mini LIPS (Lunch Provided) *Registration Add-On
• 5:30pm: New Members Welcome @ Hotel Bistro
• 6:00pm: Travel and Snack/Coffee Break at Tellus
• 6:30–9:30pm: Dome Sessions
Please note, dinner on Tuesday evening is not provided.
Wednesday
• 7:00 – 9:00am: Breakfast @ Hotel Bistro
• 9:00am–12:00pm: Paper sessions (Conference Center)
• 12:00–1:30pm: Lunch and Plenary Speaker (Conference Center)
• 2:30–4:00pm: Exhibit Hall and Coffee Break (Conference Center)
• 4:00–5:00pm: Break + Travel
• 5:00–6:00pm: Dinner @ Tellus
• 6:00pm: Coffee break
• 6:30–7:30pm: Dome Sessions
• 7:30-8:30pm: Pre Business Meeting
• 9:00–11:00pm: Hospitality @ Hotel Bistro
Thursday
• 7:00 – 9:00am: Breakfast @ Hotel Bistro
• 9:00–11:00am: Exhibit Hall (Conference Center)
• 11:00am–12:00pm: Paper sessions (Conference Center)
• 12:00–1:30pm: Lunch and Plenary Speaker (Conference Center)
• 1:30–3:00pm: Business Meeting (Conference Center)
• 3:00pm: Break
• 4:00–9:00pm: Progressive Dinner *Registration Add-On (See below for more information.)
• 9:00–11:00pm: Constellation Shoot-Out @ Dome / Trivia @ Theater
• 9:00–11:00pm: Hospitality @ Hotel Bistro
Please note, if you did not register for Progressive Dinner, dinner Thursday night is not provided.
Friday
• 7:00 – 9:00am: Breakfast @ Hotel Bistro
• 9:00am: Travel
• 9:30–11:00am: Paper Sessions @ Tellus Theater
• 11:00am–12:30pm: Tellus Education Workshop
• 12:30–1:30pm: Lunch @ Tellus
• 1:30–5:30pm: Explore downtown Cartersville
• 5:30pm: Travel
• 6:00–11:00pm: Gala, Keynote Address, and Domeoke After Party @ Great Hall/Tellus Museum
Handicap accessible busing from the Gala to the hotel will be provided at multiple times to accommodate different needs.
Saturday
• 9:30–11:30am: Breakfast & Door Prizes @ Tellus
• 11:30am: Optional — Tour Tellus and/or Cartersville
Thursday Progressive Dinner – $60 additional fee
Explore a few of our local Cartersville museums with us over dinner! Handicap accessible bus transportation will be provided directly from the hotel. We will begin the evening with appetizers at the Booth Western Art Museum. Booth Western Art Museum is a Smithsonian Affiliate and the second-largest art museum in Georgia, the Booth houses the country’s largest permanent exhibition space for Western art, with contemporary Western art, illustration, movie posters, Civil War art, Indigenous art, presidential portraits and letters, plus a Presidential Gallery featuring signed letters from every U.S. president.
Dinner will be held at the Savoy Automobile Museum, a sleek, 65,000-square-foot museum on 37 acres, named for the rusted remains of a 1954 Plymouth Savoy discovered half-buried on the museum site during construction. It connects visitors to the cultural diversity of the automobile through changing exhibits, educational programs, and engaging
Finally, dessert will be held with our hosts at Tellus Museum. Tellus started life as the Weinman Mineral Museum back in 1983, before its 2009 expansion into the science museum it is today, so before it was dinosaurs and planetariums, it was purely rocks and gems, born from Georgia’s own mineralogical heritage.
Meet Our Featured Speakers
Pranvera Hyseni
Keynote Speaker
At four years old, Pranvera Hyseni watched her first solar eclipse from a farm in war-torn Kosovo, and the sky never let her go. Today she’s a Ph.D. candidate in Earth and Planetary Science at UC Santa Cruz, where her research digs into the chemistry and origins of meteorites, asteroids, and comets, tracing the water and rock that built our solar system billions of years before it ever touched Earth’s atmosphere as a shooting star.
Her work doesn’t stay in the lab. In 2015, Pranvera founded Astronomy Outreach of Kosovo, now the largest astronomy outreach program in Eastern Europe, and went on to build Kosovo’s first national observatory and planetarium from the ground up. She’s earned the Astronomical League’s Master Outreach Award, the Association of Lunar & Planetary Observers’ Michael Reynolds Astronomy Award, and The Mars Generation’s “24 Under 24” award. Perhaps the greatest accolade of all, in a fittingly full-circle turn, she also has an asteroid, 45687 Pranverahyseni, named in her honor.
John Simcox, CPBT-KA
Plenary Speaker
John Simcox found his footing at Coastal Carolina University, where a fascination with marine wildlife grew into a decade-long career across the zoo and aquarium industry including hands-on work in wildlife education, husbandry, and behavioral training. In recent years, his focus has turned skyward; in 2024, he founded the Talon Ridge Raptor Institute to advance avian conservation through research, education, and community engagement; with a mission to bridge the gap between culture and conservation by connecting people with raptors and teaching how we coexist. He will be focusing on how science educators across disciplines can create more holistic programming for K-12 schools through interdisciplinary teaching strategies and cross organizational partnerships.
Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer
Special Virtual Program
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, a #1 New York Times bestseller that has spent over five years on the list, along with Gathering Moss (winner of the John Burroughs Medal) and her most recent work, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World.
A SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology and founder of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, Kimmerer has spent her career weaving together indigenous knowledge and scientific inquiry; work that earned her a 2022 MacArthur Fellowship, election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2023, and a place on Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2025. In 2015, she addressed the United Nations General Assembly on healing our relationship with nature.
Cross Community Virtual Opportunity
We’re honored to offer planetarium educators all over the broader community exclusive access to a special virtual program with Dr. Kimmerer. For a limited time, any planetarium educator can both view the program and offer it as a public presentation at their own facility. A request form for interested educators is included below:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfLRkqrdFzvdYN9h40SLdmB2eYFkQEDOHLjHabOjIrV7kBWew/viewform?
SEPA Professional Development Fund Silent Auction 2024
The Silent Auction is a fun activity held at each SEPA Conference. SEPA members provide items to be sold to benefit the Professional Development Fund, which was set up by SEPA Council in order to help colleagues and interns who might not otherwise be able to afford to attend the conference or a workshop.
For participants who cannot send or bring the item to the conference, or if you are offering a service or custom craft rather than a complete and tangible object, please complete and submit the Silent Auction Form.