Professor Gillen D’Arcy Wood has been awarded a 2021 Carnegie Fellowship to support his project, “Oceans 1876.” Wood’s project examines and digitizes the massive amount of scientific research on oceans from the Victorian Era, producing an accessible database to help humanists, scientists, and the general public answer questions about the deteriorating state of the world’s oceans.
As an environmental humanist, Wood’s research interests include earth science, climate change, the Anthropocene, environmental history, and nineteenth-century Britain and Empire. He is also Associate Director of Education at the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment. Wood also serves as editor of Q Magazine, which features articles written by U of I undergraduate students. Wood is the author of numerous articles and five books, including the award-winning Tambora: The Eruption that Changed the World (Princeton 2014) and recently published Land of Wondrous Cold: The Race to Discover Antarctica and the Secrets of its Ice (Princeton 2020).
The Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program annually recognizes a select group of scholars and writers in the humanities and social sciences whose scholarship addresses important and enduring issues confronting society. The award carries a $200,000 stipend to support the research and writing of fellows for up to two years. Selected by a distinguished panel of jurors, fellows are considered for the originality and potential impact of their proposals, as well as the scholar’s capacity to communicate the findings to a broad audience. Wood is one of 26 fellows in the 2021 cohort chosen among 311 nominees.