Kyle Powys Whyte

Kyle Powys Whyte is an Indigenous philosopher and a scholar of climate and environmental justice. He is currently a professor at the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability, holding the George Willis Pack Professorship. Previously, Whyte was an associate professor of Philosophy and Community Sustainability at Michigan State University (MSU), where he also served as the Timnick Chair in the Humanities. Whyte is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. He earned his undergraduate degree in business administration from Babson College, a Master's degree from the University of Memphis, and a PhD from Stony Brook University in 2009, where he received a K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award. His academic work focuses on environmental issues, particularly as they affect Indigenous communities, and often involves bridging Indigenous and Western knowledge systems. Whyte has been actively involved in interdisciplinary collaborations, working with politicians, climate scientists, environmentalists, and Indigenous peoples to address global warming. He contributed to the fourth National Climate Assessment and served on various environmental boards. His efforts to foster better relations between tribes and scientific organizations regarding climate change earned him recognition, including the 2015 Bunyan Bryant Award and an award from the National Science Foundation’s NSF INCLUDES program for a project integrating Indigenous and Western knowledge in geosciences. In 2020, he moved to the University of Michigan.