This event features MacArthur “genius” award-winning activist Catherine Coleman Flowers and her groundbreaking, community-driven work on the previously invisible problem of inadequate water and sanitation infrastructure in rural communities in the United States. The second half of the event will feature Catherine in discussion with Joaquin Esquivel, chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board (California Water Board), and Megan Mullin, faculty director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation (LCI).
Flowers’ journey is discussed in the broader context of national climate and environmental justice advocacy. The discussion will include the sanitation equity work that will soon be launched by LCI’s Human Right to Water Solutions Lab in collaboration with the California Water Board and partners.
Time: Check-in begins at 5:30pm with the discussion following at 6:00pm on April 27.
Location: Charles E Young Grand Salon – Kerckhoff Hall, 308 Westwood Plaza Los Angeles, CA 90095
Space is limited for this free event.
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Learn More: Catherine Coleman Flowers is an internationally recognized environmental activist, MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, and author. She has dedicated her life’s work to advocating for environmental justice, primarily equal access to clean water and functional sanitation for communities across the United States.
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. In addition, Flowers serves as Rural Development Manager for Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), is a Board Member for the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, and sits on the Board of Directors for the Climate Reality Project and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Flowers is also Co-Chair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission on Accelerating Climate Action and Practitioner in Residence at Duke University.
In 2021, her leadership and fervor in fighting for solutions to these issues led her to one of her most notable appointments yet — Vice Chair of the Biden Administration’s inaugural White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. Flowers was also named Levenick Resident Scholar in Sustainable Leadership at the University of Illinois for the spring 2021 and was awarded an honorary PhD in science from Wesleyan University.
As the author of Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret, Flowers shares her inspiring story of advocacy, from childhood to environmental justice champion. She discusses sanitation and its correlation with systemic class, racial, and geographic prejudice that affects people across the United States. She has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Guardian, and on PBS.
Co-Hosted by the:
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs
UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation
In collaboration with the following partners
Co-Sponsor:
California Institute for Water Resources at the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Promotional Partners at UCLA:
Institute of the Environment and Sustainability
Sustainable LA Grand Challenge
Water Resources Group
