Russell Howell Reed is a conservationist, climate activist, and writer. He is the founder of Geographer, a forthcoming creative organization fostering cultural engagement in the environmental movement. A prominent youth climate justice advocate, Russell has led delegations to several United Nations negotiations and spearheaded the ongoing Youth Clause campaign launched at COP29 in Azerbaijan. He is the former conservation manager of Virunga National Park in Eastern Congo and a founding member of biomaterials company Sway, winner of the Tom Ford Plastic Innovation Prize. Russell is a task force member of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and a board advisor to Glass Half Full Louisiana.

 

Russell's writing on culture and the environment can be found in Atmos, Document, Grist, Office, and elsewhere. He is on spring residency at the Robert Rauschenberg archives in New York City. Russell is an industry fellow at Griffith University and lectures frequently at universities including Harvard, Univerisidad Libre de Barranquilla, UC Santa Cruz, and the University of Rwanda. He holds an A.B. in Geography from Harvard—the first awarded since the department's disbandment in 1948. He was a John Harvard Scholar, president of the Harvard Political Review, and co-chair of queer activist effort Secret Court 100. He received the inaugural M.Phil. in Anthropocene Studies from the University of Cambridge, where he was the Paul Williams Scholar. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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​Work Experience

Founder & Principal, Geographer 2025–Present

Board of Advisors, Glass Half Full 2023–Present
Conservation Manager, Virunga National Park 2023–2025
Founding Team & Head of Sustainability, Sway 2020–2023

Selected Writing​
 

Document: "Snow in the Ashes of Coachella"

Atmos: "Crying at the Conference of Parties"

Office: "Finding Afterlife in the Ruins at Whole Festival"

Atmos: "A Queer Renaissance of Geography"

Full list available upon request.

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Selected Speaking

Roadmap to 2030 Keynote with Dir. Richard Deverell

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew – January 2025
Our Shared Legacy Panel with Secretary of State Ed Miliband

COP29 Baku – November 2024
Youth Climate Justice Roundtable with Bezos Earth Fund

COP16 Cali – October 2024
Connect the World Segment with Nile Rodgers

CNN New York – June 2024
Climate Storytelling Roundtable with BAFTA, NBCU & Netflix
COP28 Dubai – November 2023

Full list of engagements with partners including Aspen Institute, Audi, Bezos Earth Fund, British Council, Climate Crisis Advisory Group, The Global Goals, Natural History Museum, The New York Times, and Virgin Unite available upon request.

Teaching

Harvard University Center for Geographic Analysis
UC Santa Cruz Coastal Science & Policy
Griffith University Climate Action Beacon
U.S. Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs Crisis Response
Universidad Libre de Barranquilla Exact Sciences
University of Rwanda Biodiversity Management

Fellowships & Residencies
 

Rauschenberg Foundation New York, New York

Griffith University Melbourne, Australia

Sustainable Ocean Alliance Barranquilla, Colombia

University of Rwanda Huye, Rwanda

Royal Museum for Central Africa Tervuren, Belgium
Harvard Radcliffe Institute Cambridge, Massachusetts
International Food Policy Research Institute Kampala, Uganda
Asian Development Bank Institute Tokyo, Japan​

Education

M.Phil. Anthropocene Studies – University of Cambridge
Paul Williams Scholarship – Full Tuition
Dissertation: "On Higher Ground: Interrogating the Climatization of Indigenous Displacement in Louisiana"

A.B. Human Geography – Harvard College
Magna Cum Laude with Highest Honors
Thesis: "Savage Guerrilla, Sacred Ape: The Necropolitics of Mountain Gorilla Conservation"

Contact

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russellhreed [at] gmail [dot] com /  @russellhreed