Elizabeth Yeampierre

Elizabeth C. Yeampierre is an American attorney and environmental and climate justice leader. She is the executive director of UPROSE, Brooklyn's oldest Latino community-based organization.

Early life and education

Yeampierre was born in New York City; growing up, her family lived in multiple different neighborhoods, including Manhattan's Upper West Side, Harlem, and the Bronx. Yeampierre recounts being raised in an "environmental justice community" and the impact it had on the health of her family: her father died from an asthma attack, her mother died from lung cancer, and Yeampierre herself suffered a pulmonary embolism. She cites a woman in her community checking on her children as they slept to ensure they were still breathing: "And I realized that, if we couldn’t breathe, we couldn’t fight for justice, that, literally, there wasn’t anything more fundamental than the right to breathe."

In 1980, Yeampierre graduated from Fordham University with a BA in political science. She earned her Juris Doctor from Northeastern University in 1983.

Career

Yeampierre was the first Latina chair of the EPA's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. In 2014, she helped lead the People's Climate March which took place in New York City. She has also served as the dean of Puerto Rican student affairs at Yale University.

Yeampierre is currently the executive director of UPROSE, Brooklyn's oldest Latino community-based organization. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused extreme flooding in Sunset Park. In response, UPROSE began a community effort to prepare the area for the next disaster caused by the effects of climate change. In 2015, the New York City Economic Development Corporation started accepting proposals on how to develop empty space within the Sunset Park waterfront. Yeampierre was successful in pushing back against proposed commercial development, driven by concern that "her community could be left behind". The plan put forth by Yeampierre and UPROSE "will incentivize the local economy while putting [the community] on a path to resilience".

PBS describes Yeampierre as a climate justice leader.

Awards and honors

In 2015, Yeampierre was recognized as a Climate Warrior by Vogue In 2018, Yeampierre was awarded the Frederick Douglass Abolitionist Award FD200 In 2022, Yeampierre was named as one of Apolitical's 100 Most Influential People in Climate Policy In 2023, Yeampierre was awarded the Dale Prize by the Cal Poly Pomona College of Environmental Design in recognition of her work as an environmental/climate justice leader