We support innovative people working in hands-on science, art and craft, teaching and protection of the natural world.

Paul Andrew Wandless is an artist, author and educator. Wandless's sculptures and prints feature ceramic processes, printmaking methods, and a wide variety of sculptural techniques and mediums.

Loretta Pettway Bennett is a direct descendent of Dinah Miller, the earliest quilter from Gee's Bend, Ala., whose name is known today. Bennett continues to create handstitched quilts in the tradition taught to her by her mother, Qunnie Pettway, and passed down through her family for many generations.

Born in China and currently based in the United States, Hong Hong works across image-making, writing, and movement through repetition, disruption, duration, accumulation, limitation and translation.

Roberto Benavidez is a figurative sculptor specializing in the piñata form. Originally from Texas, Benavidez moved to California in 2000 and took night classes in bronze casting at Pasadena City College. He later switched to paper, a more accessible material than bronze, ultimately deciding to focus on the piñata technique.

Ummat Somjee’s innovative, field-based experiments focus on the evolution, function and costs of elaborate insect traits, particularly weapons used in male–male competition. Combining natural-history observations with behavioral and physiological measurements, his research reveals how sexually selected traits affect reproduction, survival and trade-offs across diverse species in the wild.

Born 1983 in No Water Mesa, Arizona, Melissa S. Cody is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation. In 2007, Cody received a bachelor’s degree in Studio Arts and Museum Studies from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Todd Elliott’s research on animal consumption and dispersal of fungi frames vertebrates as architects of fungal biodiversity and documents a critical service to ecosystems around the world. His work in mycophagy (consumption of fungi) has shown links between mammals, reptiles, birds and fungi to be ubiquitous and ecologically essential.

Marcelo Araya-Salas explores how communication systems evolve and shape behavior for wild animal populations. He specifically studies hummingbirds, songbirds and bats in diverse, neotropical ecosystems.

Noelle Lucey is a marine biologist whose research in the Caribbean has brought attention to ocean deoxygenation as a significant driver of the decline of coral reefs. Her identification of locally adapted, hypoxia-tolerant coral populations has direct implications for coral reef restoration.

Angelo Soto-Centeno’s field biology helps us understand how global changes — including natural and anthropogenic changes in temperature and habitats — affect bat populations, especially in the insular Caribbean. His work helps us anticipate and understand environmental challenges that will influence the survival and conservation of these animals.