Nabhan, Gary Paul

Gary Paul Nabhan was born in Gary, Indiana on March 17, 1952. His formal education includes a B.A. from Prescott College in Arizona (1974) and a M.S. from the University of Arizona (1978). In 1982, he received a Ph.D. in Arid Land Resources from the University of Arizona. Nabhan founded Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT). He directs the Southwest Center at the University of Arizona and is involved with Sabores Sin Fronteras. An ethnobotanist, he is works to encourage local food production and maintaining diverse cultural food traditions, as well as championing the flora and fauna of the American Southwest. He has been involved with research that seeks to counteract the prevalence of diabetes in native peoples. Nabhan has received numerous awards for his writing and research, including a Pew Fellowship in Conservation and the Environment (1991), A MacArthur Fellowships (1990-1995), the John Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing (1986, for The Desert Smells Like Rain ), and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Conservation Biology (2001).

A list of his publications includes:

From the guide to the Gary Paul Nabhan Papers, 2011-0022-X., 1866-2010 and undated, (Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, Texas Tech University)

Gary Paul Nabhan was born on 17 March 1952 in Gary, Indiana, a son of Theodore B. and Wanda Mary (Goodwin) Nabhan.

He attended Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa; Prescott College in Prescott, Arizona, and received a PhD in Arid Lands Resources from the University of Arizona in 1983.

Nabhan has devoted his career to advocating the preservation of desert plants, native seeds, and the lifestyles of native desert people, including the Native American tribes of the southwestern United States. He has lived and worked with Native American tribes including the Tohono O'odham Indians during the time of gathering data for his doctoral dissertation, Papago Fields: Arid lands ethnobotany and agricultural ecology (University of Arizona, 1983).

He began his professional career as a research associate with the Office of Arid Land Studies at the University of Arizona. He was a co-founder in 1983 of Native Seeds/SEARCH, a grassroots conservation organization dedicated to collecting and preserving the native seeds of the desert southwest. He was assistant director at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, and later writer-in-residence and director of science at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

Nabhan is a member of the Scientific and Project Committee of The Ethnobiology and Conservation Team (ECT), an international group of biologists, activists, anthropologists, conservationists, philanthropists, entrepreneurs and artists committed to carrying out conservation at the grass roots level.

He is widely published in both scientific journals and the American trade press. Awards include a McArthur Fellowship, a Pew Scholarship for conservation research, and a John Burroughs Medal in 1987 for outstanding nature writing in Gathering the Desert.

From the guide to the Gary Paul Nabhan papers, 1969-, (University of Arizona Libraries, Special Collections)