Prof. Karim-Aly S Kassam
International Professor of Environmental and Indigenous Studies in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, and the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program at Cornell University.
Fields of expertise:
Karim-Aly S. Kassam is International Professor of Environmental and Indigenous Studies in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, and the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program at Cornell University. Professor Kassam’s aim is to seamlessly merge research and teaching in the service of communities by investigating the relationship between biological and cultural diversity. His research examines the cultural and ecological basis of pluralism. It focuses on the complex connectivity of human and environmental relations, addressing Indigenous ways of knowing, climate change, food systems, and sustainable livelihoods.
This research is conducted in partnership with Indigenous communities in the Circumpolar Arctic, Boreal Forest, as well as the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Xinjiang. Through applied research and teaching, he articulates a rigorous methodology and pedagogy of hope. Through research and teaching, Professor Kassam strives to speak truth to power.
