Matt Biggar

Matt Biggar, Ph.D. ’92, has a new and timely book, Connected to Place: Regenerating Nature, Communities, and Local Economies through Systems Change (Cornell University Press, November 2025). Connected to Place is about changing the systems that shape how we live and hold us in patterns harming nature and people. Matt shows how systems change can reorient people’s lives around the places where they live and address the crisis of disconnectedness that underlies our biggest societal challenges. Matt has been researching and working on place-based systems change for almost fifteen years. He’s learned what can move systems in a regenerative direction, why it’s best directed at regional and local levels, and how it can be done. In Connected to Place, Matt details eight systems that collectively shape much of how we live and provides an easy-to-remember framework of systems-change levers and catalysts to shift those systems. Connected to Place offers a positive vision of place-based living for collective well-being and shows us how we can get there, engaging both ‘the heart’ and ‘the head’. More information is available on Matt’s book and work at www.connectedtoplace.com.