Alexa White is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan. Alexa is working to increase the number of scientists and engineers of color involved in community-led environmental justice research through her role as co-founder and executive director of her think tank, the AYA Research Institute. Trained as an agroecologist and herpetologist, her research focuses on biophysical indicators of sustainable agriculture and international climate governance pertaining to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #2: To End Hunger. Alexa is a Harvard Climate Justice Design Fellow where she is engineering environmental justice screening and mapping tools for state and local governments in the Mid-Atlantic region. She is also a Policy Entrepreneurship Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, where she works with the White House Council for Environmental Quality on environmental justice and sustainable development issues surrounding Justice40. Alexa was awarded the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Conservation Leadership Award in 2020 for her research and profound discoveries in food sovereignty and food justice.
