Julia Olson works at the intersection of human rights and environmental protection. A 1997 graduate of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, Olson spent the first part of her 22-year career representing grassroots conservation groups working to protect the environment, organic agriculture, and human health. After becoming a mother, and realizing the greatest threat to her children and children everywhere was climate change, Olson focused her work on representing young people and elevating their voices on the issue that will most determine the quality of their lives and the wellbeing of all future generations.

Olson founded Our Children’s Trust in 2010 to lead this strategic legal campaign on behalf of the world’s youth against governments everywhere. Julia leads Juliana v. the United States, the constitutional climate change case brought by 21 youth against the U.S. government for violating their Fifth Amendment rights to life, liberty, property, and public trust resources. Julia and OCT are recipients of the Rose-Walters Prize for Global Environmental Activism. She received the Kerry Rydberg Award for Environmental Activism in 2017 and is a member of Rachel's Network Circle of Advisors. To rejuvenate, Julia loves being high up in the mountains with her family and her dog or playing tunes on her ukulele with friends.