McKay Jenkins was this year’s keynote speaker for the conference. McKay Jenkins is a journalist, nonfiction writer, and scholar of American studies, specializing in environmental studies and the history, journalism, and literature of race relations and social justice. The Cornelius Tilghman Professor of English, Journalism, and Environmental Humanities, he has been writing about people and the natural world for 35 years. His newest project, a collaboration with colleagues at UD and the Delaware Nature Society, is the creation of the statewide Delaware Master Naturalist Certification Program, designed to train hundreds of environmental restoration volunteers around the state.

Jenkins is the author of the book Food Fight: GMOs and the Future of the American Diet (Avery, January, 2017), which examines the contentious national debate over the safety, politics, and environmental implications of genetic engineering and industrial food. Jenkins is also the author of ContamiNation (Avery, 2016) – previously published as What’s Gotten Into Us: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World (Random House, 2011), which chronicles his investigation into the myriad synthetic chemicals we encounter in our daily lives, and the growing body of evidence about the harm these chemicals do to our bodies and the environment.   Jenkins holds degrees from Amherst College, Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, and Princeton, where he received a PhD in English.   He is a recipient of the University Excellence in Teaching Award and both the Excellence in Teaching Award and the Outstanding Scholarship Award from the College of Arts and Sciences.
Read a profile of his work in Baltimore at the  University of Delaware’s UDaily.