Catherine Coleman Flowers

Catherine Coleman Flowers is the ​founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice. An environmental and climate justice activist, she campaigns for equal access to clean water and functional sanitation for marginalized, rural communities across the United States. In 2021, Flowers was appointed vice chair of the Biden administration’s White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. She is also a practitioner in residence at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. The author of Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret, Flowers and her work have been profiled by PBS “Newshour,” “60 Minutes,” The New York Times, and The Washington Post, among others.She is a board member at The Climate Reality Project, Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Constitutional Rights, and American Geophysical Union. Flowers’s recognition includes a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship.