Brandie Smith is the John and Adrienne Mars Director of the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. In an episode of "The David Rubenstein Show: Peer to Peer Conversations," she talks about the history of the giant pandas first arriving in the United States in the early 1970s as a state gift from China, the National Zoo's wider conservation efforts, and what it's like to oversee the return of the popular pandas to the capital. This interview was recorded January 13 in Washington DC.