Russell Howell Reed is the founder of Geographer, a creative organization driving cultural engagement in the environmental movement. A prominent climate justice advocate, Russell has led youth delegations to several United Nations negotiations and spearheaded the ongoing Youth Clause campaign launched at COP29. He formerly served as conservation manager of Virunga National Park in Eastern Congo and was a founding member of biomaterials company Sway, winner of the Tom Ford Plastic Innovation Prize. He advises organizations including Glass Half Full Louisiana, the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, and Nile Rodgers' We Are Family Foundation.

 

Russell's writing on culture and the environment appears in Atmos, Document, Grist, Office, and elsewhere. In spring 2025, he held a residency at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in New York City. An industry fellow at Griffith University, Russell lectures at universities including Harvard, UL Barranquilla, UC Santa Cruz, and the University of Rwanda. He earned an A.B. in Geography from Harvard—the first awarded since the department's disbandment in 1948—where he was a John Harvard Scholar and president of the Harvard Political Review. Russell received the inaugural M.Phil. in Anthropocene Studies from the University of Cambridge as the Paul Williams Scholar. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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​Work Experience

Founder & Principal, Geographer 2025–Present

Task Force Member, UN Environment Programme 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: "There is a Party that Never Ends"
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.

Speaking & Press

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“From Promises to Progress on Climate Justice”
UNTV & TIME | Mary Robinson & Charitie Ropati

“The Truth About Climate Commitments”
Climate Crisis Advisory Group | Clover Hogan & David King
"Can the Ruins of Industry Become a Stage for Utopia?"
Document Journal | Whole Festival

“The Power of Intergenerational Collaboration”
CNN | Nile Rodgers
 

Full list of events (including COP16, COP28, COP29, COP30, UNGA80, and IUCN World Congress) and partner engagements (including Aspen Institute, British Council, Climate Crisis Advisory Group, National Wildlife Federation, Natural History Museum, The New York Times, TIME, 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
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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