Makalé Faber Cullen

Makalé Faber Cullen is a cultural anthropologist and biodiversity strategist working at the intersection of conservation, cultural landscapes, and ecological resilience. For twenty years, she has led groundbreaking work integrating biocultural heritage into conservation and design. Most recently, she curated and produced a showcase of Central Africa’s tropical peatlands as vital ecosystems and dynamic, storied landscapes for the inaugural U.S. production of Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring—danced on peat and reimagined in collaboration with Senegal’s École des Sables, featuring 36 dancers from 14 African countries.

A rigorous academic and field researcher, Makalé has long collaborated with designers and artists to express the sensorial and unspoken dimensions of ecology. To that end, she co-produced a series of regional biocultural heritage picnics in U.S. National Parks, co-founded the Art Extension Service on Governors Island, pairing soil scientists and artists in summer residencies, and created a 24-foot, crank-operated Story Scroll illustrating the history of fruit processing in California—one of many eco-design interventions she has pioneered.

Early in her career, she was selected as the inaugural director of biodiversity programs for the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity (US), where she spent three years traveling the country to document and safeguard North America’s regional agricultural biodiversity. Co-leading the joint venture with Seed Savers Exchange, Native Seeds/SEARCH, the Center for the Environment, The Livestock Conservancy, Chefs Collaborative, and The Cultural Conservancy, she helped co-build an IUCN Red List-vetted repository of heritage crops, breeds, and wild populations while also -- critically -- documenting, celebrating, and financially supporting the cultural stewards of that biodiversity.

Currently, as a consulting Research Scientist at CUNY’s Advanced Science Research Center, she is part of a team revisiting a longitudinal USDA-NRCS study on the structure and function of urban-to-rural gradients.

As a Founding Principal of Brightside Collective, she is pioneering urban biodiversity strategies in Detroit’s Mobility Innovation District, leveraging public and private land to create green corridors, microforests, and ecological streetscapes that integrate climate resilience, public health (including financial and emotional well-being), and cultural legacy.

Makalé has advised leading institutions, including Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Toyota Research Institute, and the Lenfest Center for Cultural Partnerships, and has served as a multi-year juror for the National Endowment for the Arts. She holds degrees from the University of Virginia, MA (Commonwealth Fellow, PhD studies) and George Mason University, BA with honors, as well as a Certificate in Horticulture from the New York Botanical Garden.