Andrea Villarreal Rodríguez is a visual storyteller and environmental activist. Her work highlights the leadership of girls and women in addressing the climate crisis. She is a National Geographic Young Explorer and Communications Fellow at Girl Up Mexico— a United Nations Foundation initiative for gender equality. In 2022, she founded the Girl Up Mexico Storytelling Lab, collaborating with youth to craft impactful narratives through documentary film.

Her Future Rising Project is a short film about a group of women and their campaign as urban citizen scientists to save the urban ecology of the Santa Catarina River. This body of water, endangered by rapid urban growth and pollution, flows through Monterrey, Mexico. This group works as a collective, called “Journey to the Microcosmos,” to document the unique biodiversity of the river and rebuild the city’s relationship to the natural resource.

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Charitie Ropati is an activist and ecologist of Yup’ik and Samoan heritage who researches the connections between plant ecology, permafrost and cultural resilience in coastal Native communities. She is an Arctic Youth Ambassador, an Arctic Resilient Youth Communities Fellow, and an Aspen Ideas Fellow. She co-founded a non-profit called lilnativegirlinSTEM, which promotes equity in STEM for Indigenous women and girls. She works to create access to education and climate justice for Indigenous voices. She is pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and anthropology at Columbia.

Charitie's Future Rising Project is a short film highlighting Indigenous women with successful careers to inspire and aid young girls in navigating academia and the workforce. In addition to the short film, Charitie hopes to create workshops for young Indigenous girls to share their experiences and stories.

Dayana Blanco Quiroga is an Aymara Indigenous woman from Oruro, Bolivia, and the first Indigenous professional woman in her family. She co-founded the Uru Uru Team— an initiative focused on saving Uru Uru Lake from harmful pollution through Indigenous traditional knowledge. The lake is a vital source of life for the surrounding Indigenous communities under threat from mining, wastewater, and activity, causing immense pollution. The Uru Uru Team seeks to use indigenous traditional knowledge to address these local environmental challenges and spread awareness of these harmful practices and industries. 

Dayana’s Future Rising Project will be a multicultural and bilingual graphic novel, with both Aymara native dialect and English, to tell the story of Uru Uru Lake from Aymara ancestors to the present day. The book explains the environmental threats to the lake and highlights the work of the Uru Uru Team to restore a collective understanding of the lake’s importance for the community.

Maria Yaschenko is a Russian-Ukrainian LGBT refugee and environmental advocate living in Argentina. She is a hydro-meteorologist and environmental education activist. She works to provide education access to vulnerable populations by teaching online courses for children lacking education opportunities, and hopes to launch a program to provide additional support. In her hydro-meteorology work, she studied climate change impacts by modeling Amazon River discharge. 

Maria’s Future Rising Project is a film documenting the prominent women across Argentina making strides in climate and environmental justice work. Her project will highlight the issues facing the region and the women working to tackle climate change.

Shakhzoda Mirakova is an aspiring journalist and documentary filmmaker from Uzbekistan. As an Uzbekistan Youth Leadership Program fellow, Shakhzoda received resources and funding to start EcoChange– an initiative where 100 volunteers found homes for 250 trees in Bukhara to combat deforestation. In February 2023, she was selected to represent Uzbekistan and her perspective on gender equality at the Harvard Conference for Asian and International Relations in Massachusetts. Her work highlights Central Asian voices and their stories of climate resilience.  She is pursuing a degree in Journalism at the American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan.

Shakhzoda’s Future Rising Project is an article and photo essay about a young woman fighting against pollution and deforestation in her hometown. The project follows a woman whose bravery made her a national activist, who continues this work today as the initiator of the ecological movement in Uzbekistan.

Anjali D. Boyd is a marine ecologist, educator, entrepreneur, and elected official from North Carolina. Her research focuses on developing cost-effective restoration and management practices to restore and conserve vulnerable marine ecosystems. Anjali is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, Ford Fellow, and National Geographic Explorer. As the Director of iNviTechnology, she works to combat the underrepresentation of women and ethnic minorities in STEM fields through educational, entrepreneurial programs for children. Anjali also serves as an elected official in her hometown of Durham, N.C., as a Durham County Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor.  She is a Ph.D. Candidate and Dean’s Graduate Fellow in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.

Anjali’s Future Rising Project is a short film that tells the story of a group of Black women marine scientists’ journey through the field of marine science. The film focuses on the importance of friendship to help these women persevere through adversity and hopes to inspire young Black women to see themselves as the future of marine biology.

Collins Busuru is a wildlife biologist based in Amboseli, Kenya; he works to protect wildlife through conservation education and ecosystem restoration. In his role at the Center for Human Development— Conservation Kenya, Collins engages with the local community to provide education and resources in the face of deforestation, overgrazing, and drought, to foster climate resilience. Collins and his team in Amboseli run a mentorship program for local Maasai girls, supporting young women as they pursue their education. 

Collins’ Future Rising Project will focus on the stories of these young Maasai girls and their relationship to nature. Based just outside Amboseli National Park at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro, these young women learn skills to conserve their land in the face of worsening drought and threats from dangerous wildlife

Khongorzul is an educator from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. She works to close the divide between youth in rural and urban areas while creating deeper connections to the environment and conservation. She currently works as a program coordinator at the Mongol Ecology Center where their youth programs incorporate Mongolian nomadic culture and heritage into conservation education. While Khongorzul mainly focuses on youth education, she has begun to work with the rangers of protected areas of Mongolia and isolated communities in the fight against the climate threats of desertification and overgrazing. 

Khongorzul’s Future Rising Project is a short film about a woman who works as a National Park Ranger to protect the environment and her journey as a young woman in a field dominated by older men. Her story highlights the critical job of Mongolian Rangers and their role in educating youth and engaging local communities to fight climate change together.

Selma Bichbich is an Algerian climate youth activist. She co-founded the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Youth Network to engage young people across the region on climate and human rights issues. She represents North Africa at the Global Youth Leadership Council in the EarthUprising NGO, and is one of the Center of United Nations Constitutional Research delegates. She will serve as the delegate of Algeria at the Conference of Parties (COP) 27. Her work advocates for civic engagement and global unity to promote a sustainable future of stability. She works with youth across the MENA region to combat negative climate impacts for vulnerable communities. She is pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science in Lebanon. 

Selma’s Future Rising Project is a social media campaign to share the experiences of young people affected by climate change through blog entries, articles, and videos. This campaign will highlight resilience and emphasize the local solutions in Algeria, the Mediterranean, and the MENA regions.

Sushmita Krishnan is an ecologist pursuing her doctoral degree in environmental education at the Center for Sustainable Future in Coimbatore, India. She has received fellowships from the Indian Academy of Sciences and worked in collaboration with UNESCO’s Digital Games for Peace program as an individual specialist. She is an advocate for sustainability.

Sushmita’s Future Rising Project is an interactive story about an invasive tree in Indian Forests, Lantana camara, and the entrepreneurial ingenuity of tribal women to repurpose this tree into furniture to create sustainable businesses. She tells the story of these women who lack primary education and live isolated within Indian forests leading  sustainable business opportunities.

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