The library will welcome scientist, engineer, and experimentalist Jordan R. M. Kennedy to speak on Monday, March 23, at 6 p.m. Kennedy’s Ph.D thesis in materials science and mechanical engineering, as well as her recent work, focuses on how partnering with beavers can help restore North American landscapes. She is passionate about bridging science, traditional knowledge, and engineering to restore landscapes and reconnect with tradition and land. A member of the Blackfeet tribe, Kennedy has worked as the Tribal Partnerships Liaison and Beaver Behaviorist at the Beaver Institute, promoting the incorporation of tribal knowledge and Indigenous representation in the dissemination of knowledge about best practices concerning beavers in North American waterways. She is currently a ​​Traditional Ecological Knowledge Postdoctoral Researcher in Applied Ocean Physics & Engineering at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and in partnership with the Tlingit Tribe of southeast Alaska, her research is focused on clam gardens, a highly productive Indigenous aquaculture technology engineered and stewarded for millennia by many Tribes across the Pacific Northwest. For her talk at the library, Kennedy will share her expertise on beaver ingenuity. Beavers are some of the best engineers in North America; they build dams, dig canals, and can completely transform a valley. Kennedy has helped to build a new computer tool to simulate that process, starting with real landscape data (like maps of elevation and water flow) and then adding realistic beaver behavior. The result is a simulation where “virtual beavers” move around, make choices about where to build, and slowly reshape the landscape as they go. The goal is to use this tool to support restoration planning, especially projects designed to work with beavers rather than against them. With her work connecting science and technology with Indigenous knowledge and practices, Kennedy’s research ties in perfectly with the 2026 Falmouth Reads Together selection – “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer. In the book, Kimmerer strives to blend scientific knowledge with Indigenous wisdom, particularly from her Potawatomi heritage, to explore humanity’s reciprocal relationship with the natural world. This talk will be held in the library’s lower-level Community Room and is free and open to the public.