Kenny Broad

National Geographic's 2011 Explorer of the Year, Kenny Broad, is an anthropologist and a National Geographic Emerging Explorer who studies the relationship between humans and their environment. He received his PhD in anthropology from Columbia University in 1999.  Kenny has led or participated in extreme scientific and filmmaking expeditions on every continent—from urban jungles to the deepest caves on the planet—to gather information and samples that shed light on little-known environmental and cultural subjects. He is a professor at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and is Director of the university's Abess Center for Ecosystem Science. He also co-directs Columbia University's Center for Research on Environmental Decisions.

Kenny has worked on interdisciplinary aspects of natural resource management, ranging from the impacts of climate variability and change to perceptions of environmental risk by local stakeholders. He is a National Fellow of the Explorers Club. His recent Blue Holes expedition to the underwater caves of the Bahamas was featured as the cover story of the August 2010 issue of National Geographic magazine and as a NOVA-National Geographic television special.