Exploring mind, matter, and meaning in a time of planetary change.

Rachael Petersen is a writer, thinker, and convener working at the intersection of philosophy, ecology, and transcendence. Her work asks expansive questions — what is mind? What is the self? How might an expanded understanding of consciousness transform our relationship with the Earth?

As Program Lead of Harvard’s Thinking with Plants and Fungi Initiative, Rachael guides interdisciplinary explorations into how cutting-edge plant science challenges our ideas of mind, matter, and meaning. She holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, where her research centered on panpsychism, pantheism, and the more-than-human world, with a special focus on German Naturphilosophie. Her graduate thesis translated and introduced Gustav Fechner’s 1848 work Nanna: Or on the Soul-Life of Plants.

Before graduate school, Rachael spent over a decade advancing environmental policy and indigenous rights. She served as Deputy Director of Global Forest Watch at the World Resources Institute and as Senior Advisor to the National Geographic Society, and conducted fieldwork in the Amazon, Borneo, and Arctic Canada as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow. Through her consulting company, Earthrise, she has designed multimillion-dollar climate strategies for leading philanthropies and advised global nonprofits on conservation and climate justice.

Her essays and poetry have been published in Aeon, The Sun, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Tricycle Magazine, The Rumpus, The Outline, and elsewhere. She is also a trained Buddhist Ecochaplain in the Sōtō Zen tradition.

Through writing, convening, and collaboration, Rachael seeks to bridge speculative thought and grounded action — nurturing conversations that reimagine what it means to live meaningfully in a time of planetary transformation.

You can often find her powerlifting, playing piano, or running trails with her Australian Cattle Dog, Līlā,