Alaka Wali is curator of North American Anthropology in the Science and Education Division of The Field Museum and Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University. She was the founding director of the Center for Cultural Understanding and Change from 1995- 2010. She currently curates the sizeable North American collection which includes a contemporary urban collection. Her research sites include urban Chicago and the forests of the Peruvian Amazon. Her current work concerns the relationship between art-making and the capacity for social resilience. She has curated over 10 exhibits for The Field Museum. As a Neubauer Collegium Visiting Fellow, she is collaborating with Justin Richland and Jessica Stockholder on the project Open Fields: Ethics, Aesthetics and the Very Idea of a Natural History.