Robin Wall Kimmerer is a novelist, ecologist, and activist known for her books centered around the human relationship with nature and ecology. Kimmerer was born in 1953 in upstate New York next to the Onondaga Nation. At a young age, she became connected with her Native American roots as her parents worked to rekindle their relationship with their heritage. She attended SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry where she received her BS in Botany. Kimmerer continued her education at the University of Wisconsin where she graduated in 1983 with a MS and Phd in Botany.

In 2005, Kimmerer published her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, discussing the commonly unacknowledged importance of mosses and their contributions to natural ecosystems. The novel won the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing in 2005. Kimmerer’s writing not only focuses on topics of ecology, but also uses indigenous knowledge as a base to understand the world and its happenings. Robin Wall Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, a Native American people originating from the Great lakes region. Currently, the majority of this nation resides in Oklahoma as a result of the federal relocation of the Native American peoples. Kimmerer is the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, a group which works to educate people about Native American life by creating sustainability projects driven by indigenous practice and values.

Kimmerer published her second book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, in 2013. The novel is composed of a collection of personal essays, detailing Kimmerer’s connection to the environment and encouraging others to develop their own. Kimmerer continues to do impactful work at SUNY ESF and Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, spending her free time writing, teaching, and maintaining on her farm in upstate New York.