Kyle Whyte

Kyle is a faculty member at Michigan where he is George Willis Pack Professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability and University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor. On campus, Kyle teaches in and coordinates the School’s environmental justice graduate specialization. He is founding Faculty Director of the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment, co-Principal Investigator of the Global Center for Understanding Climate Change Impacts on Transboundary Waters, Faculty Associate of Native American Studies, Convener of the Secretariat for the Pathways Alliance for Change and Transformation, affiliate Professor of Philosophy, and Senior Fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows.

Kyle’s research on environmental justice addresses moral and political issues facing Indigenous peoples in the areas of climate change, conservation, and cooperative relationships between Indigenous peoples and science institutions. His publications appear in journals such as Climatic Change, Weather, Climate & Society, Science, Daedalus, WIREs Climate Change, Environment & Planning E, and Sustainability Science. He is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.

Kyle is co-Chair of the Continental Biodiversity and Climate Change Assessment. He is a member of the IPBES Indigenous and Local Knowledge Task Force, the National Academy of Science’s Resilient America Roundtable, and The Nature Conservancy’s External Science Advisory Board. He is President of the Board of Directors of the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition and sits on the Energy Equity Project’s Advisory Board, Climate United’s Advisory Council, and the Pesticide Action Network’s Board of Directors. Kyle is in the 2024 cohort of the Christensen Fund’s Indigenous Leadership Program.

Previously, Kyle has served as a U.S. Science Envoy and as a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, the Department of the Interior’s Advisory Committee on Climate Change and Natural Resource Science, and two environmental justice work groups convened by Michigan governors. He has been an author for U.S. Global Change Research Program, the IPCC Working Group II, and the Status of Tribes and Climate Change report. He is a certificate holder of the United Nations’ Training Programme to Enhance the Conflict Prevention and Peacemaking Capacities of Indigenous Peoples’ Representatives.

The National Science Foundation has been a major supporter of Kyle’s research and educational projects for over a decade. Supporters also include the NorthLight Foundation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Builders Initiative, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Mellon Foundation, Joyce Foundation, Climate and Land Use Alliance, Christensen Fund, Swedish Research Council, Energy Foundation, Crown Family Foundation, Sustainable Michigan Endowed Program, McKnight Foundation, Spencer Foundation, Marsden Fund, and Health Research Council of New Zealand.

Kyle has long term relationships with number of partners who advance Indigenous research and educational methodologies, including the College of Menominee Nation’s Sustainable Development Institute, the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society, the Center for Indigenous Peoples’ Research and Development, the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe’s Consortium for Cooperative Ecological Resilience, Sustʻāinable Molokai, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago, the Red Lake Nation, the Christensen Fund, the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, the Bad River Tribe, the Climate and Traditional Knowledges Workgroup, and Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga.

Kyle has received the Breaking Barriers Award from the Michigan Democratic Party, the Superior Teaching Award from his School’s Student Governing Board, the Community Engagement Scholarship Award and Distinguished Partnership Award for Community Engaged Research from Michigan State, the Bunyan Bryant Award for Academic Excellence from Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, and the Forty Under 40 Alumni Award and Don Ihde Distinguished Alumni Award from Stony Brook. Kyle has served as Austin J. Fagothey Distinguished Visiting Professor at Santa Clara, Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Rudrick Distinguished Scholar at Waterloo, Patricia Sheffels Visiting Scholar at Colorado, Ottilie Timnick Chair at Michigan State, and Distinguished Visitor at the Max Planck Institute.