Robin Wall Kimmerer

In April, 2015, Kimmerer was invited to participate as a panelist at a United Nations plenary meeting to discuss how harmony with nature can help to conserve and sustainably use natural resources, titled "Harmony with Nature: Towards achieving sustainable development goals including addressing climate change in the post-2015 Development Agenda."

Kimmerer received the John Burroughs Medal Award for her book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Her first book, it incorporated her experience as a plant ecologist and her understanding of traditional knowledge about nature. Her second book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, received the 2014 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. Braiding Sweetgrass is about the interdependence of people and the natural world, primarily the plant world. She won a second Burroughs award for an essay, "Council of the Pecans," that appeared in Orion magazine in 2013.

She is the author of numerous scientific articles, and the books Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (2003), and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (2013).

From Wisconsin, Kimmerer moved to Kentucky, where she found a teaching position at Transylvania University in Lexington. She and her young family moved shortly thereafter to Danville, Kentucky when she took a position teaching biology, botany, and ecology at Centre College. Kimmerer received tenure at Centre College. In 1993, Kimmerer returned home to upstate New York and her alma mater SUNY-ESF where she currently teaches.

Kimmerer remained near home for college, attending SUNY-ESF and receiving a bachelor's degree in botany in 1975. She got a job working for Bausch & Lomb as a microbiologist. Two years working in a corporate lab convinced Kimmerer to explore other options and she returned to school. She moved to Wisconsin to attend the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She earned her master's degree in botany there in 1979, followed by her PhD in plant ecology in 1983.

Robin Wall Kimmerer (also credited as Robin W. Kimmerer) (born 1953) is Professor of Environmental and Forest Biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF).

Robin Wall Kimmerer was born in 1953 in the open country of upstate New York to Robert and Patricia Wall. She grew up playing in the surrounding countryside. This time outdoors, playing, living, and observing nature rooted a deep appreciation for the natural environment in Kimmerer. Her enthusiasm for the environment was encouraged by her parents and Kimmerer began envisioning a life studying botany.