Native American Heritage Month Spotlight: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Robin Wall Kimmerer (enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation) is a botanist and author. She is also a Distinguished Teaching Professor and serves as the director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York College (SUNY) whose mission is to create programs that draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for sustainability. Kimmerer holds a B.S. in Botany from SUNY, an M.S. and Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Wisconsin and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge, and restoration ecology.

In collaboration with tribal partners, Kimmerer and her students have conducted research in the ecology and restoration of plants of cultural significance to Native American people. She is active in efforts to broaden access to environmental science education for Native American students, and to create new models for integration of indigenous philosophy and scientific tools on behalf of land and culture. Kimmerer’s career is motivated in part by her family history. Her paternal grandfather, also a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, received an assimilationist education at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The school was one of the first American Indian boarding schools, which set out to “civilize” Native American children, forbidding residents from speaking their language and effectively erasing their Native culture.
Learn more about Robin Wall Kimmerer.
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