Ed Yong is passionate about science. He is the best-selling author of I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us, a groundbreaking, informative, and entertaining examination of the relationship between animals and microbes. His second book, An Immense World, takes a comprehensive look at the fascinating sensory worlds of animals. A New York Times bestseller, An Immense World is longlisted for the PEN America 2023 Literary Award and has made many Best Books of the Year lists. A longtime science reporter for The Atlantic, his work has also appeared in National Geographic, the New Yorker, Wired, Nature, New Scientist, and Scientific American, among others. Named “the most important and impactful journalist” of 2020 by Poynter, Ed Yong was awarded journalism’s top honor, the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, for his crucial coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. He anticipated the course of virus, the complex challenges that U.S. faced, and the government’s disastrous failure in its response. An accomplished speaker, Yong brings his vast scientific knowledge and engages his audiences through his insightful conversations

Diane Wilson (Dakota) is a writer, educator, and environmental advocate who has published four award-winning books as well as essays in numerous publications. Wilson’s recent novel, The Seed Keeper (Milkweed Editions) was awarded the 2022 Minnesota Book Award for Fiction. Her memoir, Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past (Borealis Books) won a 2006 Minnesota Book Award and was selected for the 2012 One Minneapolis One Read program. Her 2011 nonfiction book, Beloved Child: A Dakota Way of Life (Borealis Books) was awarded the 2012 Barbara Sudler Award from History Colorado. Wilson’s middle-grade biography, Ella Cara Deloria: Dakota Language Protector, was an Honor selection for the 2022 American Indian Youth Literature Award. She is a co-author of a 2022 picture book, Where We Come From. Her most recent essays, which explore seed advocacy, food sovereignty, social justice, and cultural recovery, have been featured in acclaimed anthologies: Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations; We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World; and A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota. Wilson is the former Executive Director for the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, a national coalition of tribes and organizations working to support food sovereignty, and Dream of Wild Health, a Native-led farm. Wilson is a Mdewakanton descendent, enrolled on the Rosebud Reservation. She lives near the St. Croix River in Minnesota, where she cares for an Indigenous seed garden, native perennials for pollinators, and a Tamarack bog.

Lyanda Lynn Haupt is an award-winning author, naturalist, ecophilosopher, and speaker whose work explores the beautiful, complicated connections between humans and the wild, natural world. Her newest book is Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit (Little, Brown Spark 2021). Lyanda’s writing is acclaimed for combining scientific knowledge with literary, poetic prose. Her previous books include: Mozart’s Starling; The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild; Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness; Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent: The Importance of Everything and Other Lessons from Darwin’s Lost Notebooks; and Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds. She is a winner of the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award, the Nautilus Book Award, a finalist for the Orion Book Award, and a two-time winner of the Washington State Book Award. Lyanda has created and directed educational programs for Seattle Audubon, worked in raptor rehabilitation in Vermont, and been a seabird researcher for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the remote tropical Pacific. Her essays have appeared in a variety of publications, including Orion, Discover, Utne, LA Times, Times Literary Supplement, Image, Huffington Post, Wild Earth, and Conservation Biology Journal. She lives in the mossy green woodlands of Bellingham, Washington.

Max Sorenson is an artist, conservationist, and Visiting Artist at the Aldo Leopold Foundation. He was a Land Stewardship Fellow in the 2022-23 cohort of Future Leaders Fellows. Max holds a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art and Biology from Grinnell College in rural Iowa and a practice dedicated to the holistic and care-full expansion of land stewardship. He is currently based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Karl Malcolm is a wildlife ecologist, conservation professional, public servant, and, along with his family, an avid participant in nature. He grew up in rural northern Michigan, where his formative experiences included lugging buckets full of maple sap, working in a local lumber mill, long days as a farm laborer, and sunrises as first mate on a Lake Michigan salmon boat. Karl has served for the U.S. Forest Service in positions at local, regional, and national levels, and taught internationally on conservation, fish and wildlife management, and wilderness stewardship. He got his start with the agency in New Mexico after earning his PhD in wildlife ecology from the University of Wisconsin. During a decade in the Southwestern U.S., Karl spent much of his free time exploring far off the beaten path, including extended hunting, fishing, and camping trips deep in the Gila Wilderness. Karl’s writing, photography, and public appearances have been featured in a variety of outlets including Natural History Magazine, The Backcountry Journal, Bugle Magazine, The Pope and Young Ethic, The Black Range Naturalist, Trout Magazine, MeatEater, and Animal Planet. His essay, Gila Elemental, is included in the recent anthology, First and Wildest: The Gila Wilderness at 100, published by Torrey House Press. Karl now resides with his wife, daughter, and son in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, and serves as the assistant regional director of Renewable Resources for the Eastern Region of the U.S. Forest Service.

Elizabeth Hightower Allen is the editor of First and Wildest: The Gila Wilderness at 100, which collects original essays from a diverse range of writers, politicians, scientists, ecologists, and activists in celebration of America's first wilderness. She is a contributing editor at Outside magazine and the founder of Hightower Creative, where she edits and consults for publishers, magazines, and authors. Her writing has appeared in Outside, the New York Times and Washington Post book reviews, and other outlets. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Writers on the Range, which provides free op-eds to small newspapers across the West. Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, she lives with her husband and daughter in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

JJ Amaworo Wilson is an Anglo-Nigerian-American writer. He is the author or co-author of twenty books. His 2016 novel, Damnificados, won four awards and was an Oprah Top Pick. His 2021 novel, Nazaré, won the Foreword INDIES Book Award and the Independent Publisher Book Award. Amaworo Wilson has also written several books about language, two of which won prizes that saw him honored at Buckingham Palace in 2008 and 2011. He is the writer-in-residence at Western New Mexico University and teaches creative writing on the Stonecoast MFA program. He lives in Silver City, New Mexico, at the edge of the Gila Wilderness.

Priyanka Kumar is the nationally-acclaimed naturalist and author of Conversations with Birds, praised as “a landmark book” that “could help people around the world rewild their hearts and souls” (Psychology Today). Conversations with Birds is a finalist for the 2023 CLMP Firecracker Award for a book that makes a significant contribution to our literary culture. Her new nonfiction book, The Light Between Apple Trees is forthcoming in Fall 2025. Kumar’s essays, criticism, and poems appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Review of Books, High Country News, Orion, Terrain, The Rumpus, and New Mexico Magazine. Her work has been featured on CBS News Radio, Yale Climate Connections, Oprah Daily, NPR, and PBS Cultura. Kumar grew up in the Himalayan foothills and, as a teenager, moved to North America where her work has received major recognition: an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award, a New Mexico/New Visions Governor’s Award, a Canada Council for the Arts Grant, an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Fellowship, an Aldo & Estella Leopold Writing Residency, a PLAYA Residency, and a SOMOS/Mabel Dodge Luhan Residency. Kumar holds an MFA from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts and is an alumna of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She has taught at the University of Southern California, the University of California Santa Cruz, and given keynote addresses across the country from Los Angeles to Tucson to Alaska. Kumar wrote, directed, and produced the feature documentary The Song of the Little Road, starring Martin Scorsese and Ravi Shankar. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Leopold Writing Program.

Buddy Huffaker is a worldwide advocate for environmental ethics and conservation, executive producer of the Emmy award-winning documentary Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time, and Executive Director of the Aldo Leopold Foundation. Buddy has represented conservationist Aldo Leopold’s legacy and land ethic for over 25 years. In this time, he has personally engaged the Leopold family, stewarded over 4,000 acres in and around the Leopold Shack and Farm National Historic Landmark, brokered the translation of Aldo Leopold’s seminal work A Sand County Almanac into new languages, and participated in three White House Conferences on conservation and environmental education. In delivering countless presentations and programs across the country, Buddy has grown a passion for not only sharing Leopold’s story, but making environmental ethics relevant, accessible, and engaging to everyone everywhere.

Bennett Artman is 2023-24 Land Stewardship Fellow at the Aldo Leopold Foundation. He was born in the mountains of Colorado, formed his earliest memories on walks to a lake in Oneida, Wisconsin, and came of age on the shores of Lake Michigan - much of his life has led him to foster a deep love and passion for the world around him, both human and nonhuman. His dream of building his own land ethic came to fruition while studying psychology and environmental studies at UW-Madison, where he learned about the teachings and practices of Aldo Leopold. After reading A Sand County Almanac, he became enthralled by the idea that his one precious life here on earth allows him to connect with and live amongst so many beautiful people, plants, animals, and ecosystems. He became a certified Wisconsin Master Naturalist and enjoyed working with the Wisconsin Master Naturalists program and the UW-Madison Office of Sustainability. As Future Leaders Fellow, he has been able to gain acute knowledge of the Wisconsin ecosystems he loves, meet others who cannot live without wild things, and grow as a person, a conservationist, and a member of the biotic community.

Blossom Ramos is a 2023-24 Land Stewardship Fellow at the Aldo Leopold Foundation. She is a conservation graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, and she has been grateful for the opportunity to work within the Aldo Leopold Foundation. Though she grew up in McHenry, Illinois, she has come to appreciate the natural diverse beauty that can be found all around Wisconsin. Blossom worked with The Prairie Enthusiasts and dove into the world of dendrochronology throughout her time at UW-Platteville. She was able to present research at Research in Rotunda 2022 and at the AAG 2023 Conference. In her spare time, she enjoys exploring new places, exercising, and playing with her two cats.

Brianna Elizondo is a former 2023-24 Land Stewardship Fellow at the Aldo Leopold Foundation. She grew up in Holland, Michigan – famous for its tulips – in a home nestled in the woods along the shores of Lake Michigan. She has always been intrigued by the natural world and how humans interact with the environment. Since she was young, she has had the drive to protect and conserve our natural resources and to educate others on how to maintain a healthy relationship with the outdoors. In pursuit of furthering her education and expanding her knowledge of ecological conservation, she attended Northern Michigan University, where she studied Biology with a concentration in Ecology and Spanish. During her time as a Land Stewardship Fellow, she deepened her passion for conservation and became better equipped to employ sustainable land management techniques. Brianna is now a Big Sky Watershed Corp Member at the Flathead Lake Biological Station in Montana.

Kysh Lindell is a 2023-24 Education and Communication Fellow at the Aldo Leopold Foundation. Born just outside of Denver, Colorado and raised by a family of Wisconsinites, they spent their life exploring the natural world from peak to prairie. Kysh graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in English and history. Both areas of study urged them to explore the profound and complex relationships between people and the environments they are part of, as well as creatively discuss those relationships through different mediums. They have a particular passion for exchanging environmental perspectives with the public, whether by conducting oral history interviews about early life on the Great Plains, recording a podcast episode about hunters’ role in aiding wildlife conservation, or simply chatting with fellow birders on the trail. They have been thrilled to continue sharing their curiosity, fostering compassion for the natural world, and enacting a shared land ethic as a fellow at the Aldo Leopold Foundation. In their free time, you’ll find them scouring flea markets and antique stores, wandering riverbanks, writing, fishing, birding, or listening to John Denver.

Maia Buschman is a 2023-24 Education and Communication Fellow at the Aldo Leopold Foundation. She grew up in and around Albuquerque, New Mexico, and while that gave her a particular fondness for deserts and other Southwestern landscapes, she has so much fun exploring new places and has found something to love everywhere she has lived and traveled. She studied in Vermont and earned her bachelor’s in conservation psychology from Middlebury College in 2020. She has been excited to be able to work with Leopold’s land ethic because she wants to understand how people interact with and think about the environment and to see how personal connections to land might shape attitudes around conservation and sustainability more broadly. When not wandering with her camera or on her bike, she’s reading, writing, listening to music, or trying out a new vegan recipe.