Six women artists are among 25 people selected by the MacArthur Foundation to receive prestigious 2022 MacArthur fellowships (known as ‘genius grants’) in recognition of their extraordinary creativity and promise to advance the future of their fields.
These six women whose pioneering work brings insight and inspiration — a literary historian, a plant ecologist, three musicians, and an architect — will each receive $800,000, a no-strings-attached award as an investment in their potential.
“The 2022 MacArthur fellows are architects of new modes of activism, artistic practice, and citizen science,” says MacArthur Fellows Director, Marlies Carruth. “They are excavators uncovering what has been overlooked, undervalued, or poorly understood. They are archivists reminding us of what should survive.”
Congratulations Robin Wall Kimmerer, Plant Ecologist, Educator, and Writer!
A plant ecologist and storyteller from Syracuse, New York, Robin has been researching how to build a better environment through scientific research and the body of knowledge cultivated by Indigenous peoples.
She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (2013), and is currently a Distinguished Teaching Professor and Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Robin also brings to her scientific research and writing her lived experience as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and the principles of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK).
“I’ve heard our elders say that one of the reasons that our people held on to traditional knowledge and teachings against all odds, was that one day there would come a time when all of the world was in need of this wisdom. I think that time, is now,” she says.
© Reanne Rodrigues (2/2/22) — Special for FF2 Media
LEARN MORE / DO MORE
To learn more about Robin Wall Kimmerer, please visit the MacArthur site here.
CREDITS & PERMISSIONS
Featured photo courtesy of John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
