As an environmental geographer, Dr. Mrill Ingram reaches across Wisconsin’s landscapes, connecting the farm field to the street terrace, to champion creative environmental action. The arc of Dr. Ingram’s career embraces sustainable agriculture, academic collaboration, progressive media, and community-based research.
Across these diverse settings, Dr. Ingram utilizes science and the arts to connect marginalized perspectives and empower all with high-quality information for making sound environmental decisions. Her cross-disciplinary writing and engagements expand ideological boundaries and include diverse perspectives to center equity and build creative, compassionate solutions to environmental challenges. Dr. Ingram’s book, Loving Orphaned Space: the art and science of belonging to Earth, (2022) won the J.B. Jackson Prize from the American Association of Geographers for work that encourages Americans to look thoughtfully at the human geography of their own country, to understand how that geography came to be, and how to actively engage as citizens. Dr. Ingram offers the concept of “orphaning” of space as a way to revise infrastructure and our relationships with Earth to create welcoming, biodiverse, generative places everywhere we live.
Dr. Ingram’s long-time work with Wisconsin farmers focuses on the social networks that build trust and support people in improving environmental practices. She currently serves as a participatory action research scientist for the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, and as a community restoration consultant for Madison’s BT Farms regenerative housing project, employing a strong public participation process to bring together neighborhood resilience, food sovereignty, ecological restoration, and environmental justice. Her creative thinking and embrace of the arts reimagine intransigent problems and offer creative and practical solutions for a generous and sustaining world welcoming to all.
