Russell Reed

Upon discovering that Harvard's geography department was disbanded in 1948 due in part to its head faculty's rumored homosexuality, Russell petitioned the faculty to study geography through an independent curriculum, ultimately graduating with Harvard's first geography degree in 70 years. (He tells the story in Atmos here.) At Harvard, he led a student-faculty activist effort, Secret Court 100, demanding posthumous degrees for the victims of the homophobia Secret Court of 1920.

 

Russell received the 2020 Paul Williams Scholarship to join the inaugural cohort of the M.Phil. in Anthropocene Studies at Cambridge. While at Cambridge, Russell served as Co-LGBT Chair of the Emmanuel College MCR.

 

Russell is currently engaged in a portfolio of environmental justice-focused efforts around the world, detailed at russellhreed.com, and is an engaged youth activist soon attending COP29 as the Lead Delegate of Nile Rodgers's We Are Family Foundation.