Gary Nabhan, Ph.D.
Gary Nabhan is the first director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University and is responsible for coordinating an expanding array of environmentally oriented programs and initiatives. A tenured professor in applied indigenous studies and the Center for Environmental Sciences and Education, he also helps to oversee NAU's graduate certificate program in conservation ecology. He is the author of 18 books on genetic conservation, ecology, and nutrition, and will soon publish his 19th, Cuisines for Your Genes (Island Press).
Nabhan was one of the scientists who assisted the Center for Food Safety in its legal challenges against the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency over their handling of Bt-corn. He has served on the board of the Seed Savers Exchange, the National Park System Advisory Board, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Plant Germplasm Advisory Board. Nabhan cofounded the nonprofit conservation group Native Seeds/SEARCH, initiated the Traditional Native American Farmers' Association, and spearheaded the Ironwood Alliance, which was responsible for research and public support that led to a 120,000 acre Ironwoods Forest National Monument. For such cross-cultural collaborations, Nabhan has been awarded a MacArthur "genius" grant and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Conservation Biology. His writing is widely anthologized and translated, and he has won the John Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing, a Western States Book Award, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship.
Center for Sustainable Environments, Northern Arizona University
