Harriet Ritvo

Ritvo is Arthur J. Conner Professor of History at MIT and author of The Platypus and the Mermaid, and Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination (1997), The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age (1987), and The Dawn of Green: Manchester, Thirlmere, and the Victorian Environment (forthcoming 2009). Her current research focuses on wildness and animals. She is editor of the "Animals, History, Culture" book series and president of the American Society for Environmental History. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, she has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Humanities Center.