About:

Elizabeth Yeampierre is Executive Director of UPROSE, Brooklyn’s oldest Latino community based organization. Her award winning vision for an inter-generational, multi-cultural and community led organization is the driving force behind UPROSE. She is a long-time advocate and trailblazer for community organizing around just, sustainable development, environmental justice and community-led climate adaptation and community resiliency in Sunset Park. 


Ms. Yeampierre was the first Latina to chair the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC). Ms. Yeampierre is also a member of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences Advisory Council. Elizabeth advocates for the authentic engagement and leadership of communities in research in their own communities. Elizabeth was the opening speaker at the First White House Forum on Environmental Justice.

As a community leader, her work at UPROSE has facilitated an aggressive urban sustainability and environmental justice agenda. She created an urban forestry initiative and significantly contributed to the doubling of open space in Sunset Park, facilitated the retro-fit and re-powering of 12 diesel trucks for a local businesses, organized a community wide coalition credited for facilitating the local defeat of a 520 mega-watt power plant application and just this year, celebrated 4 big victories – the return of the B37 bus line , the expansion of the 4th avenue median, the opening of the long fought for 23 acre waterfront park and convening the largest gathering of young people on climate change in the US. In response to Super Storm Sandy, UPROSE launched the Climate Justice and Community Resiliency Center-NYC’s first grassroots-led, bottom-up, climate adaptation and community resiliency planning project. And last year, Elizabeth was part of the leadership team responsible for the guidance and structure of the Peoples Climate March.

Elizabeth was recently named one of the top 100 Green Leaders by Poder Hispanic Magazine. She is the recipient of the 2011 National Alliance for Hispanic Health VIDA (Vision, Innovation, Dedication, and Advocacy) Award, Boricua College Professional Achievement Award in Environmental Health Award 2011, American Bar Association Commission on Hispanic Legal RIghts and Responsibilities 2011 Award, La Federacion Nacional de Pioneros Puertorriquenos Award 2010, Speaker Quinn’s 2009 NYC Council Women’s History Award: Women in Environmentalism, 2007 NRDC Earth Day New York Environmental Advocate of the Year Award, the Municipal Art Society Yolanda Garcia Community Planner Award, 2007 American Planning Association Paul Davidoff Award, 2006 USEPA Region 2 Environmental Quality Award, 2006 Urban Agenda Urban Visionary Award, 2004 National Latina Leadership Award from the National Foundation of Women Legislators and its affiliate, the National Council Of La Raza, the country’s largest Hispanic civil rights organization. Ms. Yeampierre received the 2003 Asian Americans for Equality Dream of Equality Award and the Comite Noviembre Hispanic Heritage Award.

Ms. Yeampierre has been a featured speaker at forums across the United States, including Yale, Harvard, Cooper Union, Columbia, and universities, colleges and conferences all over the country. Her work is featured in several books, in addition to TIEMPO, Latina Magazine, Despierta America, and a variety of media outlets throughout the United States, LatinAmerica and Europe.