Mary BLAIR

Mary E. Blair, Ph.D. is the Associate Director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History. She leads an interdisciplinary research program on biodiversity informatics and environmental change using the lens of a biocultural approach, which explicitly starts with and builds upon local and Indigenous values, knowledge, and needs while recognizing the interplay between the cultural and biological parts of a system. Her research has been funded by prestigious awards from NASA and the National Science Foundation in the United States. Her blogs for the New York Times have reached a global audience, as have her engagements as a storyteller for The Moth. Mary is also a descendant of Indigenous Sámi reindeer herders from Guovdageaidnu (Kautokeino), Sápmi (Finnmark, Norway).