Catherine Coleman Flowers

Catherine Coleman Flowers is an internationally recognized environmental justice activist, MacArthur Fellow “Genius Grant” recipient, and author of Waste: One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret. Founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice (CREEJ), Flowers has spent her career promoting equal access to clean water, air, sanitation, and soil to reduce health and economic disparities in marginalized, rural communities. Flowers sits on the Board of Directors for the Climate Reality Project, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the American Geophysical Union. She served as the Vice Chair of the Biden Administration’s inaugural White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council and is a Practitioner in Residence at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. In 2023, Flowers was recognized as one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the world.