Professor, University of Michigan
Kyle Whyte is the George Willis Pack Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. Previously, Whyte was professor of philosophy and community sustainability and Timnick Chair at Michigan State University. Whyte’s research addresses moral and political issues concerning climate policy and Indigenous peoples, the ethics of cooperative relationships between Indigenous peoples and science organizations, and problems of Indigenous justice in public and academic discussions of food sovereignty, environmental justice, and the anthropocene.
He is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Whyte has partnered with numerous Tribes, First Nations and inter-Indigenous organizations in the Great Lakes region and beyond on climate change planning, education and policy. He is involved in projects and organizations that advance Indigenous research methodologies, including the Climate and Traditional Knowledges Workgroup, Sustainable Development Institute of the College of Menominee Nation, the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians’ Climate Change Program, and Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga.
He has served as an author on reports by the U.S. Global Change Research Program and is former member of the U.S. Federal Advisory Committee on Climate Change and Natural Resource Science and the Michigan Environmental Justice Work Group. Whyte’s work has received the Bunyan Bryant Award for Academic Excellence from Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, Michigan State.