Carolyn Finney (author) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Carolyn Finney
Education	Ph.D. in Cultural Geography, Clark University
Occupation	Assistant Professor, University of Kentucky
Awards	Fulbright Scholar Canon National Parks Science Scholars Fellowship Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship

Carolyn Finney (born 1959), is a storyteller, author, artist, educator, and currently a scholar-in-residence in the Franklin Environmental Center at Middlebury College. Finney's work reveals how nature and the environment are racialized in America. She began her professional journey as an actor; for eleven years she worked in television (commercials, Beauty and the Beast) while honing her craft. After leaving acting, Finney spent five years backpacking through Africa, Asia and Europe, and living in Nepal. Inspired by this experience, Finney furthered her education and completed her Bachelors of Arts at Fairhaven College at Western Washington University in gender and international development. She completed her Masters of Social Science at Utah State University focusing on international rural community development. She went on to fulfill her Ph.D. in Geography at Clark University. Finney's full-time work is engaging with a wide variety of organizations, institutions and community groups in her capacity as a public speaker, consultant, advisor and writer.

Current projects

At present, Finney is working on her one-woman show,The N Word: Nature, Revisited, is an imagined conversation with John Muir which will be workshopping the show at the New York Botanical Gardens Humanities Institute in the summer of 2021 as part of her Mellon residency. In addition, Finney is working with Emmy-award winning documentary film-maker Irene Taylor (Vermilion Films) who is including her family’s story in an upcoming HBO documentary about humans complex relationship to trees.

Education

In her early college years, Finney focused on liberal arts degree and eventually dropped out to pursue a career in acting. After 11 years of acting, Finney embarked to travel the world, inspiring her to return to college. There, she completed her Bachelors of Arts in gender and international development in Western Washington University and her Master of Social Science in international rural community development at Utah State University. After graduating, she continued her education at Clark University in Massachusetts and earned her Ph.D. focusing on Geography.

Recognition

Finney has been a Fulbright Scholar (2001), a Canon National Parks Science Scholar (2003), and received a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Environmental Studies at Wellesley College.

Selected publications

• Finney, C. 2020. "The Perils of Being Black in Public: We are all Christian Cooper and George Floyd". The Guardian.
• Finney, C. 2020. "Self-Evident: Reflections on the Invisibility of Black Bodies in Environmental Histories". BESIDE Magazine, Montreal.
• Finney, C. 2019. "This Moment". River Rail: Occupy Colby.
• Finney, C. 2019. "A Thousand Oceans". Geographical Research, Wiley Pub.
• Finney, C. 2018. "The Space Between the Words". Harvard Design Journal.
• Finney, C. 2014. Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors. University of North Carolina Press.
• Finney, C. 2014. "Doing it Old School: Reflections on Giving Back".  Journal of Research Practice Athabasca University Press, Canada
• Finney, C. 2013. "Ode to New York: A Performance Piece".  Center for Humans and Nature.
• Finney, C. 2013. "Brave New World? Ruminations on Race in the 21st Century". Antipode (early view online Wiley-Blackwell).
• Finney, C. 2012. "Child’s Play: Finding the Green in the In Between".  In Companions in Wonder: Reflections on Children and Adults Exploring Nature, Julie Dunlap and Steven Kellert, editors, MIT Press.