We support innovative people working in field-based science, art and craft, teaching and protection of the natural world.

Neal Thomas was born on April 22, 1940, in Raeford, N.C. While working in the timber industry in the late 1950s, Thomas met an elder African American woodworker named Herman Holder, who shared with him the art and skill of making split white oak baskets. At 85, he can “drop trees on a dime” and fashion split white oak baskets with the dexterity and strength of a 20-year-old.

Fidisoa Rasambainarivo strives to understand the ecological drivers of infectious diseases within populations and ecosystems. He focuses on how habitat degradation, as well as human and animal interactions, are changing the patterns of pathogen transmission across geographical and ecological boundaries in Madagascar. Research in his lab at East Carolina University examines interactions between human, animal and environmental health — a concept known as One Health — to inform policies and promote both public health and biodiversity conservation.

Working with lizards to better understand how species adapt and evolve, James Stroud studies natural selection in the field and explores how ecological and evolutionary processes at the microscale may shape biodiversity at the macroscale.

Field research is vital to the work of Natalia Llopis Monferrer because the delicate organisms she studies, Rhizaria, can’t be grown in labs. Researching them helps us better understand silica-cycling in marine ecosystems.

Robert K. Mills is a Tlingit artist of the Tsaagweidi clan from Kake, Alaska. Working in metal, paint and wood, Mills’ art is deeply rooted in the traditions of his ancestors and pioneering new expressions for future generations.

A freshwater ecologist, Rachel Malison combines fieldwork with laboratory experiments, monitoring and community outreach to understand how aquatic ecosystems function — and how to protect them. Growing up in the wild landscapes of northern Idaho inspired her lifelong interest in river systems. After earning her Ph.D., Malison received the prestigious Marie Curie Fellowship to conduct ecological research in Norway for three years. She returned to Montana to work where her passion for rivers, biodiversity and hands-on science took root at the Flathead Lake Biological Station (FLBS) during her undergraduate field courses.

Anusha Shankar focuses her research on how animals manage and balance their time and energy and how they respond to environmental differences, such as across elevation, rural-urban gradients or warming temperatures resulting from climate change.

An enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe, Teri Greeves has been beading since she was eight years old and today has work in the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the British Museum and the collection of the State of New Mexico, among others.

Jolie Ngo explores the intersection of craft, technology and community. Working from her studio in Santa Barbara, Calif., Ngo expands the boundaries of ceramic art through a multifaceted and playfully subversive approach, stripping away the seriousness often associated with clay traditions and forging a new conceptual and experimental path.

Kevin Aspaas is a Navajo textile and fiber artist. Known for his work with the Navajo wedge weave technique, Aspaas practices a process he calls “sheep to loom.” The process involves gathering and spinning wool from the small flock of Navajo-Churro sheep he raises in Shiprock, NM.