Karim-Aly S. Kassam is International Professor of Environmental and Indigenous Studies. Along with his students, Dr. Kassam’s objective is to seamlessly merge teaching with applied research in the service of communities. Dr. Kassam and his students conduct human ecological research in partnership with indigenous peoples and local communities globally. They seek to innovate policy and practice in civil society by re-envisioning paradigms that are failing. Dr. Kassam’s current research efforts coalesce around areas of high altitude and latitude where ecological and socio-cultural change are critically affecting food, health, energy, and water sovereignty. Through participatory research, he and his students incorporate qualitative and quantitative techniques from the social and biophysical sciences as well as the humanities. Dr. Kassam’s research group takes a pluralistic approach, recognizing that effective solutions are based on multiple epistemological paradigms. His research group asserts that indigenous knowledge helps conserve biocultural diversity in ways that are beyond the reach of single-disciplinary approaches. By supporting communities as they anticipate and respond to change, Dr. Kassam’s research group engages complex ethical and policy challenges of the 21st century.