Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, professor, author, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. As a writer and scientist, Kimmerer works not only toward the restoration of ecological communities, but also restoration of the relationships of humans and the land. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants.
“I was lucky enough to grow up in the country, the outdoors, really with an ethic of and recreation of learning from the land,” Kimmerer says. “Not just being outside, but indeed with that notion that the land had something to teach us. That the natural world had a kin relationship with us, so that way of thinking, of great respect and reverence for the natural world, coalesced with my interests as a budding botanist.”
Upon her first attempt to register a major in botany at her university, however, Kimmerer was told she should instead consider an art major when she spoke of wanting to study the role of beauty in nature.
“I chose botany in college because I wanted to know everything I could about our plant relatives,” she says. “In particular, the question struck me as to why is the world so beautiful? The example that really shone for me when I went away to college was the spectacle of the goldenrod and the asters that grow together in the fall. I knew, just from knowing those plants, that they could grow all over the fields, but they grow together, side by side, in this stunning visual display.”
There seemed a natural purpose for the gold and blue flowers to amp up the beauty as they grow. Kimmerer disregarded her college advisor’s advice and studied botany—the relationship of plants to each other, to other living organisms, and to humankind—and the role beauty plays in strengthening those relationships.
Kimmerer holds a BS in Botany from SUNY ESF, an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants and Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Kimmerer lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology. She was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. Kalamazoo Nature Center’s Terry Todd International Speaker Series will present Kimmerer’s talk at 6 p.m. on July 12 at the Chenery Auditorium. The event is currently at capacity.
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