Become a Nesting Ambassador: www.NestedWorld.org
First Official Cohort Graduates From The Nesting Ambassador Program,
Advancing A Global Nesting Movement For Connection, Care, And Cultural Transformation
June 27, 2026 — Kindred World proudly celebrates the graduation of the first official cohort of the Nesting Ambassador Program, recognizing a remarkable group of leaders who have completed an immersive journey into the science, practice, and advocacy of nurturing cultures through Nested Kinship.
These inaugural Nesting Ambassadors join a growing international Nesting Movement dedicated to strengthening families, communities, and societies by promoting the conditions that help every child—and every person—thrive. Through months of study, reflection, collaboration, and practical application known as Kinship Praxis, graduates explored the holistic science foundations of the Evolved Nest and its resulting Kinship Worldview. In bringing to life the Evolved Nest through Kinship Praxis, Nesting Ambassadors close the theory-praxis gap for species-normal wellbeing while implementing and embodying life-affirming ways of being and the values of the Kinship Worldview.
“The first graduating cohort of Nesting Ambassadors represents the grounded potential of Kindred World’s long-held and stewarded nonprofit vision and mission. With Nesting Ambassadors leading the way, together, we are ready to Welcome a Wisdom-based, Wellness-informed World,” said Lisa Reagan, Kindred World’s founder. Learn more about Kindred World’s quarter-century of stewarding a New Story for the Human Family here. Learn more about How To Get Involved here.
Darcia Narvaez, Kindred World president and NAP instructor says: “These graduates are the first of many who will help return humanity to its heritage of nestedness. They are not only trauma-informed but wellness-informed, understanding that the evolved nest is foundational for lifelong wellbeing. These ambassadors will spread the practices of Nested Kinship, our species’ heritage for living responsibly as Earthlings. As they help re-establish species-normal health, intelligence and wellbeing, humanity will return to honoring, respecting and nurturing a sentient planet.”
Based on the award-winning, holistic, transdisciplinary science of humanity’s species-normal Evolved Nest and Kinship Worldview, the Nesting Ambassador Program equips participants to communicate the importance of nurturing beginnings, healthy relationships, and community resilience through education, outreach, and collaborative, embodied leadership. Graduates are prepared to engage with families, educators, health professionals, policymakers, and/or community advocates to help cultivate cultures that prioritize human flourishing.
Each graduate completed a rigorous curriculum that integrated interdisciplinary research spanning child development, neuroscience, anthropology, psychology, ecology, and cultural transformation. Participants also explored practical strategies for acknowledging and affirming where our Evolved Nest appears, many times in isolation, while simultaneously fostering communities grounded in empathy, mutual support, and shared responsibility.
As the inaugural graduating class, these ambassadors have established a strong foundation for future cohorts and demonstrated what is possible when people come together with a shared commitment to building a more compassionate and life-affirming world.
Kindred World extends its heartfelt congratulations to every graduate of this historic first cohort. Their dedication, curiosity, and leadership embody the values of the Nesting Ambassador Program and should inspire hope for future generations.
A waitlist is available for future Nesting Ambassador Program cohorts at www.NestedWorld.org. Individuals interested in joining this growing network of changemakers are encouraged to learn more at the Nested World Initiative: www.NestedWorld.org.
Visit the Nesting Ambassadors’ Field Notes and Reports on Bringing to Life the Evolved Nest.
Visit the Global Directory of Nesting Ambassadors.
About Kindred World
Kindred World is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing a nurturing, partnership-based future through education, research, advocacy, and community engagement. Guided by the Kinship Worldview and informed by interdisciplinary science, Kindred World works to cultivate cultures where people, communities, and the living Earth can flourish together. Learn more about Kindred World’s quarter century of service to the human family: www.KindredWorld.org.
About Darcia Narvaez
Darcia Narvaez is a Professor of Psychology Emerita at the University of Notre Dame. She is the co-founder of the public and professional educational outreach project the Evolved Nest Initiative whose nonprofit mission is to share her science research into developing appropriate baselines for lifelong human wellness and providing guidelines for fostering full human potential. This wellbeing baseline is imperative at this time as the United States ranks 40th out of 40 developed countries in public policies that support families. (See the UNICEF Report.)
In 2024 Darcia received the Presidential Citation Award from Division 24 of the American Psychological Association (APA). Established in 2019, the Presidential Citation Award honors a nationally or internationally recognized scholar who has made significant contributions to the field of psychology or to a body of interdisciplinary scholarship. Narvaez was nominated for the Presidential Citation Award based on her work that supports the flourishing of theoretical psychology in both a distinguished record of publication and teaching and the educational outreach programs and events offered to the general public through the Evolved Nest Initiative.The 2024 Presidential Citation is awarded directly from the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, Division 24, of the APA.
The 2024 award is the second time the APA has recognized Narvaez’s work. Her book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom, also won the APA’s 2015 William James Book Award. The Evolved NestInitiative, ENI, is based on the interdisciplinary science research and insights found in this book.
A trilogy of films featuring the science of the evolved nest, narrated by Darcia, are: Breaking the Cycle, The Evolved Nest: Nature’s Way of Raising Children; and Reimagining Humanity. The films have been translated into German and Spanish, and Breaking the Cycle has additionally been translated into Turkish. All films are subtitled in 14 languages.
In 2022, Narvaez was elected a fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the largest international body of professional scientists in the world and publisher of the prestigious journal Science. Narvaez was honored for her distinguished contributions illuminating typical and atypical development in terms of well-being, morality and sustainable wisdom.
In a 2020 analysis of top scientists, Narvaez emerged in the top 2% of scientists worldwide. Of the eight million scientists in the world, the analysis concerned those who had at least five articles published in scientific journals between 1996 and 2017 – over six million scientists. Individuals were ranked according to various criteria, including number of citations of their work.
In 2017, Narvaez’s book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom, was chosen for the Expanded Reason Award from among more than 360 total entries from 170 universities and 30 countries. Narvaez received the prize, including a substantial monetary award, at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Vatican City on September 27, 2017. The book also received the William James Award from the American Psychological Association in 2015.
For the first portion of her career, Narvaez investigated moral psychology and moral development in typical ways — through studying reason, cognition, and education. But several years ago, she grew deeply interested in cross-disciplinary insights into evolutionary issues. As she read deeper into neuro- and clinical sciences, she began to see all sorts of connections that sparked further research.
“I realized that all these fields bore on moral development. I was awakened to the fact that human beings are a particular species with particular needs that, especially in early life, need to be fulfilled in order to construct an individual’s sociality and compassionate morality,” she said. “The key insight was realizing that our species’ evolved nest is vital for fostering our cooperative human nature. When the evolved nest is degraded, as it is in industrialized countries, it can impair capacities for cooperation and compassion because early stress is toxic to species-typical neurobiological function.”
Her empirical, theoretical, and applied research now focuses on the kinds of characteristics notable in communities that provide the evolved nest to children from conception, and nest all
ages throughout life, societies that demonstrate wellbeing, heart-minded morality, and communal imagination.
Narvaez hosted interdisciplinary conferences at the University of Notre Dame regarding early experience and human development in 2010, 2012, and 2014. In 2016 she organized a conference on Sustainable Wisdom: Integrating Indigenous KnowHow for Global Flourishing. (Click on the links to see the full conferences in video on the Evolved Nest’s YouTube Channel.)
She is the author or editor of numerous books, textbooks, and articles: see The Science page for listings. Visit her University of Notre Dame page here.
Darcia is the current president of the award-winning, venerable nonprofit Kindred World. The Evolved Nest is an initiative of Kindred World. See all of Kindred World’s strategies and initiatives for advancing a Wisdom-based, Wellness-Informed Society here. She is a contributing editor to Kindred, the first global, eco-parenting magazine; a board of directors member of Attachment Parenting International; and an advisory board member of the Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health, APPPAH.
Dr. Darcia’s Awards and Recognition
Presidential citation from American Psychological Association Division 24 (2024)
Included in an analysis of the top 2% of scientists worldwide (2020)
Winner of the Expanded Reason Award for her book NDHM (2017)
Winner of the William James Book award from the American Psychological Association (2015)
Invited speaker at the Whitehouse Conference on Character and Community (2002)
Tied for 11th place ranking for most productive educational psychologist in field from 1997-2001 (2004)
Awards for multiple books from the Invited to speak around the world from the American Educational Research Association
Fellow of American Psychological Association, Association for Psychological Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Educational Research Association
Creator of Integrative Ethical Education, Triune-Ethics Meta-Theory, Evolved Nest Theory
Co-founder and host of EvolvedNest.org (since 2016)
Professor Emerita, University of Notre Dame (since 2020)
