Lauren Wiggins

Lauren Elizabeth Wiggins is a Master of Environmental Management candidate focused on infusing ecosystem conservation with equitable urban design. She found her passion for environmental justice while conducting undergraduate research on air quality disparities in Nashville (contributing to EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory), and eventually in Paris–for the United Nations’ COP21–during a student-led march proclaiming “we can’t breathe”. 

After graduating from Tennessee State University—a historically black university and southern family legacy that both her grandmother and mother attended before her–she continued to hold onto activism and community science as a community organizer and campaign strategist with numerous local, national, and global non-profits. She is a current chair of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy Next Generation Advisory Board and serves on the project management team for a local multi-use trail urban planning project in Atlanta. This fall, she will be attending COP27 with the Yale delegation in Egypt.