Climate Scholar Whyte to Give Public Lecture at UW as Part of Three-Day State Visit

An internationally recognized scholar and leader in climate adaptation and transformation pathways will visit the University of Wyoming to give a public lecture Friday, Sept. 11, at 7 p.m. in the Agriculture Building auditorium.

Kyle Whyte, the George Willis Pack Professor at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability, will make a public author presentation, followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience. The title of his talk is “Indigenous Climate Science: Reframing the problem for solutions at scale.”

The event -- part of a Wyoming Anticipating the Water-Climate Transitions (WyACT) grant -- will be open to the broader UW community and public, with a particular interest in students and faculty working in natural resources, social-ecological systems and Indigenous studies. The event also will be recorded and livestreamed.

“Whyte’s work with national and international Indigenous climate science offers new perspectives for a Wyoming audience to imagine resilient futures that are grounded in kinship, collaboration and landscape adaptation,” says Mary Keller, a senior lecturer in the UW Department of Philosophy and Religion, and an event organizer.

It is hoped that Whyte’s visit will build greater awareness of the networks emerging from Whyte’s visionary scholarship and facilitate conversations informed by Indigenous environmental science that is applied to Wyoming’s landscape, says Emma Carlson, knowledge coproduction coordinator for the WyACT grant, and one of the organizers for Whyte’s UW visit.

Whyte, director of the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment at the University of Michigan, is a leading scholar of environmental ethics and adaptation. An enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, his work explores Indigenous knowledge, governance and approaches to environmental decision-making and responding to environmental change. Whyte has contributed to national and international environmental assessments and policy efforts, including the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

For more information about Whyte, go to www.seas.umich.edu/research/faculty/kyle-whyte.

During his Wyoming visit, Whyte will be part of a public conversation and reception hosted by Central Wyoming College (CWC) President Brad Tyndall and led by CWC faculty member Eric Bennett and Ivan Posey, tribal education coordinator for CWC’s Intertribal Education and Community Center. “What the Water Teaches Us: Building Pathways for Indigenous, Education, Knowledge and Community” is scheduled Thursday, Sept. 10, at 9:30 a.m. at CWC’s Little Theatre in Riverton.

For Whyte’s agenda, go to www.sites.google.com/view/whyteinwyoming/agenda.

For more information about Whyte’s visit to UW, email Keller at mkeller@uwyo.edu or Carlson at ecarlso9@uwyo.edu.