Earth's Canopy

I met the most incredible woman on UWTV. She made me wish that I was more grounded in this world so that I could have weaved such a web of success around TREES! However, I know that I do my own weaving and that envy is ignorance. It is amazing what an individual can do with education and inspiration. She definitely is following her bliss. And that is amazing that I am appreciating education/academia! My blindspots can clear! Lately I'm noticing some of them clearing quickly.


Nalini Nadkarni, Ph.D.Project Co-Director and Member of the Faculty, The Evergreen State College
President, International Canopy Network

A professor and forest ecologist at The Evergreen State College, Dr. Nadkarni is the co-director of the Sustainable Prisons Project. Since 1985, she has conducted forest canopy research on four continents, mainly in Costa Rica and in Washington State, supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society. Her awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellowship. In 1994, Nalini founded the International Canopy Network to foster communication among canopy researchers, educators and conservationists. While teaching and publishing 85 scientific articles and three books, she identified the need for scientists to reach – and in turn learn from – non-traditional audiences beyond academia. Toward that end, she established the Research Ambassador Program to help scientists convey their ideas and research results to such groups as faith-based communities, urban youth and incarcerated men and women. Nalini’s work has been highlighted in numerous scientific journals, popular magazines, television documentaries and conferences such as TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design). She lives with her biologist husband and two children in the woods west of Olympia, Washington.

Following the "songlines" of my day to day life I wonder if Earth's canopy is Her Crown and Aura? Certainly Humans add (positive) or detract (negative) to that energy field.