Gary Paul Nabhan is a world-renown conservation scientist and Director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University. He is a sought-after lecturer, gifted nature writer, and an acclaimed ethnobotanist specializing in researching and teaching about the complex relationships that evolve between indigenous peoples and their environments, particularly in the American Southwest and northern Mexico. He has been at the forefront of renovating native plant agriculture in the Americas, developing regional food initiatives throughout the Western United States and co-founding the most important seed housing heirloom plant DNA in the country. In recognition of his three decades of work in the field, among his many awards and honors, he has received a MacAuthur “genius” award, a lifetime achievement award from the Society for Conservation Biology, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship. Among his books are: Salmon Nation’s Food Traditions (2006), Why Some Like it Hot: Food, Genes, and Cultural Diversity (2004), Woodlands in Crisis (2004), Cross-Pollinations: The Marriage of Science and Poetry (2004), Tequila: A Natural and Cultural History (2004), and Singing the Turtles to Sea (2003). He has both direct and indirect links to Carleton. About 20 years ago the biology department invited him to campus for a series of guest lectures, and in the past, the ENTS program has assigned his book, Enduring Seeds, to its courses.
Opening Convocation: Gary Nabhan
Gary Paul Nabhan, PhD, is an Arab-American writer, lecturer, food and farming advocate, rural lifeways folklorist, and conservationist who has been called the “father of the local food movement.” His Opening Convocation address was titled “Renewing America’s Food Traditions.” Gary Nabhan has authored more than twenty books on natural and cultural history, conservation, and sustainable agriculture. In addition, he has lectured at universities in Mexico, Lebanon, Peru, Oman, Guatemala, and Italy, including Slow Food’s University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo. For his literary work and his grassroots conservation and community-based ethnobiology projects, Nabhan has been honored with the John Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing, a MacArthur Genius Fellowship, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Conservation Biology, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Pew Fellowship in Conservation and Environment, and a Quivira Coalition award for excellence in science that contributes to “the radical center.” Dr. Nabhan recently accepted a tenured professorship as a Research Social Scientist based at the Southwest Center of the University of Arizona, his alma mater.