The Rachel Carson Award is awarded each spring by the National Audubon Society's Women in Conservation to recognize "women whose immense talent, expertise, and energy greatly advance conservation and the environmental movement locally and globally".[1] Honorees are drawn from diverse backgrounds, including the worlds of journalism, academics, business, science, entertainment, philanthropy and law.[2]
The award is presented to honorees each May at the Rachel Carson Award Luncheon. The Luncheon, which is held annually at New York City's Plaza Hotel. Proceeds from the Luncheon support Audubon's Long Island Sound Campaign. (With more than 28 million people living within 50 miles of its shores, the Sound is home to 10 percent of the U.S. population. Unfortunately, it has undergone unprecedented pollution, habitat loss, and ecosystem disruption. The crisis in this significant estuary has led to a campaign of national importance.) Additionally, Audubon's Women in Conservation Program, in conjunction with Audubon's Rachel Carson Awards Council, supports a website connecting women of all ages to extraordinary leaders in the environmental movement and to the great environmental issues of our time. In its mission to support environmental opportunities for girls and young women, Audubon's Women in Conservation also supports a prominent internship program and hosts an educational school panel in which past Rachel Carson Award honorees speak at a local all-girls school.[3]
The award is named in honor of Rachel Carson, a monumental figure of the 20th century and the undisputed founder of the modern environmental movement.[4] Each year the Rachel Carson Award is created by Tiffany & Company. The Rachel Carson Awards Council was founded by Allison Whipple Rockefeller in 2004.
Gina McCarthy, Former EPA Administrator and Professor of Public Health Practice at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health[5]
Mary Powell, President and CEO, Vermont Green Mountain Power[6]
Dorceta Taylor, Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion & James E. Crowfoot Collegiate Professor at University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability[7]
