Carolyn Merchant is an American ecofeminist philosopher and historian of science most famous for her theory on The Death of Nature, whereby she identifies the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century as the period when science began to atomize, objectify, and dissect nature, foretelling its eventual conception as composed of inert atomic particles. Her works are important in the development of environmental history and the history of science. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Environmental History, Philosophy, and Ethics at UC Berkeley.
Environmental history is the study of human interaction with the natural world over time, emphasising the active role nature plays in influencing human affairs and vice versa.
Marquetta L. Goodwine is a non-sovereign, elected monarch who serves as Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah Geechee Nation. She is an author, preservationist, and performance artist.
Kathryn A. Finney is an American author, researcher, investor, entrepreneur, and businesswoman. She is the founder of Genius Guild, a $20 million dollar venture fund & studio that invests in Black entrepreneurs building scalable businesses that serve Black communities and beyond. She is also founder and Board Chair of The Doonie Fund, a social platform that provides micro-investment to Black women entrepreneurs. Finney first made her mark as a tech entrepreneur when she sold “The Budget Fashionista” after running the site-turned-media company for 11 years.
Sophia Danenberg is an American mountain climber best known as the first African American and first black woman to climb Mount Everest, the world's tallest mountain. Danenberg is active in local and national politics and serves as a Washington State Park Commissioner. She is biracial, with her mother Japanese and her father black.
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a Potawatomi botanist, author, and the director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF).
Debora Hammond is an American historian of science, former Provost and Professor Emerita of Interdisciplinary Studies of the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies at the Sonoma State University. She is known as author of the 2003 book The Science of Synthesis: Exploring the Social Implications of General Systems Theory, and as 2005–06 President of International Society for the Systems Sciences.
Diana Muir, also known as Diana Muir Appelbaum, is an American historian from Newton, Massachusetts, best known for her 2000 book, Reflections in Bullough's Pond, a history of the impact of human activity on the New England ecosystem.
Nikky Finney is an American poet. She was the Guy Davenport Endowed Professor of English at the University of Kentucky for twenty years. In 2013, she accepted a position at the University of South Carolina as the John H. Bennett, Jr. Chair in Southern Letters and Literature. An alumna of Talladega College, and author of four books of poetry and a short-story cycle, Finney is an advocate for social justice and cultural preservation. Her honors include the 2011 National Book Award for her collection Head Off & Split. Finney is a member of The Wintergreen Women Writers Collective.
Jennifer Finney Boylan is an American author, transgender activist, professor at Barnard College, and a former contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. She was the vice president of PEN America and became PEN America's president in December 2023.
Ecofeminism is a branch of feminism and political ecology. Ecofeminist thinkers draw on the concept of gender to analyse the relationships between humans and the natural world. The term was coined by the French writer Françoise d'Eaubonne in her book Le Féminisme ou la Mort (1974). Ecofeminist theory asserts a feminist perspective of Green politics that calls for an egalitarian, collaborative society in which there is no one dominant group. Today, there are several branches of ecofeminism, with varying approaches and analyses, including liberal ecofeminism, spiritual/cultural ecofeminism, and social/socialist ecofeminism. Interpretations of ecofeminism and how it might be applied to social thought include ecofeminist art, social justice and political philosophy, religion, contemporary feminism, and poetry.
The contributions of women in climate change have received increasing attention in the early 21st century. Feedback from women and the issues faced by women have been described as "imperative" by the United Nations and "critical" by the Population Reference Bureau. A report by the World Health Organization concluded that incorporating gender-based analysis would "provide more effective climate change mitigation and adaptation."
Jos Boys is an architecture-trained, activist, educator, artist and writer. She was a founder member of Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative and co-author of their 1984 book Making Space: Women and the Man-Made Environment. Since 2008 she has been co-director of The DisOrdinary Architecture Project with disabled artist Zoe Partington, a disability-led platform that works with disabled artists to explore new ways to think about disability in architectural and design discourse and practice.
Corina Newsome is an American ornithologist, birder, science communicator, and graduate student at Georgia Southern University. In response to the racism faced by Black birder Christian Cooper in Central Park, Newsome co-organized Black Birders Week to celebrate Black birders.
Black Birders Week is a week-long series of online events to highlight black nature enthusiasts and to increase the visibility of black birders, who face unique challenges and dangers when they are engaged in outdoor activities. The event was created as a response to the Central Park birdwatching incident and police brutality against Black Americans. The inaugural event ran from May 31 to June 5, 2020. The week of events was organized by a group of STEM professionals and students known as the BlackAFinSTEM Collective.
Earyn McGee is an American herpetologist and science communicator. She is an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) IF/THEN Ambassador and a 2020 AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellow. In response to the racism faced by Black birdwatcher Christian Cooper in the Central Park birdwatching incident, McGee co-organized Black Birders Week to celebrate Black birders.
Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors is a 2014 book by cultural geographer Carolyn Finney. The book examines the relationship between African Americans and the environment, particularly challenging the notion of the environment and environmentalism as white spaces. Black Faces, White Spaces uses a combination of autoethnographic accounts, discourse analysis of media, interviews, and analysis of artistic forms of expression to contextualize a narrative about environmental policy and race relations in the United States. Finney explores the subject through the lenses of environmental history, feminist and critical race theories. In her discussion of American experiences with the environment, Finney highlights how the legacy of slavery creates disparities in the impact of environmental laws such as the Wilderness Act due to factors such as racial segregation. Black Faces, White Spaces challenges assumptions that the environmental movement makes about universal values, individualism, and agency, arguing that they reflect a class-based and racial power structure that denies participation from people of color.
Rae Wynn-Grant is a large-carnivore ecologist and a fellow with National Geographic Society. She is best known for her research of the human impact on the behavior of black bears in Montana and is an advocate for women and people of color in the sciences.
Teresa Baker is an outdoor diversity activist, writer, and founder of several organizations which most recently includes the In Solidarity Project, an organization designed to increase diversity and inclusion in outdoor spaces by working with outdoor industry companies and CEOs. She is the founder of several other initiatives designed to increase diversity and inclusion in outdoor spaces, including African American Nature and Parks Experience, which hosts the annual African American National Park Event and the annual Hike Like a Girl event.
Carolyn Zahn-Waxler is an American developmental psychologist known for studying morality over the life span, social emotions, and empathy in childhood. She holds the position of Honorary Fellow at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
