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r. Nalini Nadkarni has a busy brain. I should know; I’ve been married to her for nearly forty years. She can be described as (in no particular order): a taxi driver, surveyor, hitch hiker, pioneering canopy researcher, forest ecologist, mother, TED talk giver, science and art mixer, teacher, science-to-incarcerated promoter, solo hiker, Canopy Barbie creator, science and religion cross-linker, disturbance and recovery specialist, nationally-recognized public speaker, nature fashionwear designer, woodworker, and overall inspiration to the world.
She is a seriously creative individual, charismatic, with an intense desire to communicate science to non-traditional audiences. Nalini was one of the first people, and certainly the first woman, to use mountain climbing gear to scale towering forest trees. As she sat in her leafy empyrean, the masses of epiphytes (canopy-dwelling plants) that cloaked branches captured her imagination, launching a decades-long research program on the roles of epiphytes in forest ecosystems.
Bucking Groove Formation Dr. Nalini Nadkarni Retires… whatever that means By John “Jack” Longino SBS Professor of Biology
She taught me those ropes—literally—and I spent many hours in treetops with Nalini, absorbing the sights, sounds, smells, and feel of the canopy. At the time, others using ropes to gain canopy access were mostly brawny guys, with an “only the bravest and toughest” ethos. Nalini was the opposite. “With the right equipment, your grandmother can do this,” she has said more than once. She was selfless in promoting tree climbing, teaching hundreds of people how to get on that rope and inch-worm up to the canopy. Academia encourages groove formation, in which you carve out a novel intellectual groove for yourself, and you continually mine that groove for new knowledge. That has its place and value, but Nalini is a professional groove-hopper. She started her career at a major research university, winning accolades as a preeminent ecosystem ecologist. But the era encouraged groove formation above all else and was not supportive of women who wanted children—or of faculty who saw science as being for those outside as well as inside the ivory tower. This prompted her stint as Director of Research at a botanical garden in Florida, followed by a long career at The Evergreen State College in Washington State. This was the ideal crucible for a groove hopper. A small liberal arts college, Evergreen had a radical agenda: no grades, no faculty rank, no departments, and, as a core principle, interdisciplinarity. She and I split one position there, allowing us time not only to teach but to develop our research and to raise our two children. It was at Evergreen that Nalini’s creativity was given free reign. While maintaining an active research program, she constantly
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