Catherine Coleman Flowers is an internationally recognized environmental activist and founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice (CREEJ). She has dedicated her life to advocating for equal access to clean water, air, sanitation, and soil to reduce health and economic disparities in poor and rural communities across the United States. 

A MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient, Flowers sits on the board of directors of the Climate Reality Project, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and RMI. She has served as 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. 

She is the author of “Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret,” and her essays have appeared in the New York Review of Books and the New York Times, among other publications. In 2023, Flowers was recognized as one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the world and was featured on Forbes’ 50 Over 50 list. Her latest book is “Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice, and Finding Hope.”