Yakima Valley College’s 2020-2021 Diversity Series continues with a virtual conversation featuring Robin Wall Kimmerer, a scientist, decorated professor, author and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. The free event will be held on Tuesday, January 12, 2021 from 11:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. PST. A Q&A will follow the lecture. Register for the event online.

Wall Kimmerer’s talk, “Indigenous Women – Science, Wisdom, Mothering,” will help inspire young women of color to pursue careers in the sciences and embrace their cultural heritage. The talk also aims to inspire working mothers to continue their education.

Wall Kimmerer is the author of the widely acclaimed book “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants.” Her first book, “Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses,” was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain and numerous scientific journals.

Wall Kimmerer tours widely, has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett, and in 2015 addressed the United Nations General Assembly on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Wall Kimmerer lives in Syracuse, N.Y., where she is a State University of New York (SUNY) Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs drawing on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for shared goals of sustainability.

As a writer and scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of humans’ relationships to land. Wall Kimmerer holds a BS in Botany from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology.

Since 2005 Yakima Valley College has partnered with several local area organizations to host events and lectures through its annual Diversity Series. The events provide YVC the opportunity to bring diverse perspectives to everyday topics and push the boundaries of the term beyond race, gender, social class and sexuality.

For more information contact Counselor Vicente Lopez at vlopez@yvcc.edu.