Environmental Writer to Speak at Commencement

Michelle Nijhuis ’96 has been selected by the Class of 2008 to deliver the commencement address at the college’s graduation ceremony on Monday, May 19. Nijhuis (pronounced NYE-house) is an award-winning science and environment journalist who writes for newspapers, magazines, and public radio. She is a contributing editor of High Country News, and her work also appears in publications, including Smithsonian, The Christian Science Monitor, Audubon, and Orion. She is the winner of several national journalism honors, including the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism, an AAAS Science Journalism Award, and selection for the anthology Best American Science Writing. She majored in biology at Reed. With her husband, Jackson Perrin, she lives off the electrical grid in Western Colorado.

Selected recent publications by Nijhuis include:

• “Beetle Warfare,” High Country News, November 2007
• “Teaming up with Thoreau,” Smithsonian, October 2007
• “A Downside to Downing Dams?” High Country News, October 2007
• “Dead End: What border barriers mean for wildlife,” Audubon, September 2007
• “Wildfires Ignite Worries,” All Things Considered, August 2007
• “Everybody’s Doing It: What your credit card says about your social conscience (and your bathroom habits),” Orion, July/August 2007
• “High and Dry,” 2006—A collection of the award-winning High Country News series on climate change in the American West

As more commencement information becomes available, it will be posted on Reed's website.

Michelle Nijhuis ’96