Dr. Paige West holds The Claire Tow Professorship in Anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University, serves as the Director of the Columbia University Climate School Transdisciplinary Research Lab, and is a Guggenheim Fellow. She has worked in Papua New Guinea since 1996 and has conducted over 120 months of field-based research in the country. She is the author of three books and the editor of five more and is the founder of the journal Environment and Society: Advances in Research and served as its editor for a decade. Her most recent book, Dispossession and the Environment, won the 2017 Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award.In addition to her academic work, Dr. West is the co-founder of the PNG Institute of Biological Research, a small NGO dedicated to building academic opportunities for research in Papua New Guinea by Papua New Guineans. She is also the co-founder of the Roviana Solwara Skul, a school in Papua New Guinea dedicated to teaching at the nexus of indigenous knowledge and western scientific knowledge.