Janet Phoenix, MD, MPH is an Assistant Research Professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. Dr. Phoenix received a 2008 Health Policy Fellowship from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation where she worked on health care reform efforts in the US Senate. She designed and implemented a home visiting program for developmentally disabled children to identify environmental asthma triggers and environmental hazards and to educate families on risk reduction strategies. She served on the CDC’s Lead Poisoning Advisory Committee and the EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee. She consulted internationally for the US Agency for International Development and the EPA in efforts to eliminate the use of leaded gasoline. Dr. Phoenix directed a community based participatory research project in DC with faith-based organizations in partnership with local health and environmental agencies. She managed the National Lead Information Center–a federally funded hotline and clearinghouse. She was the Director of Health Education for the Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning. She has been interviewed on Good Morning America, CNBC and Voice of America and numerous print outlets, and has designed 3 national media campaigns on lead poisoning prevention. They included a Spanish language campaign for Spanish language media outlets Telemundo, Univision and Galavision, and an award-winning campaign using the muppets Elmo and Oscar for Children’s Television Workshop. She has written curriculums on environmental lead poisoning, environmental triggers of asthma, breast cancer and AIDS.
Jacqueline Patterson is the Founder and Executive Director of the Chisholm Legacy Project: A Resource Hub for Black Frontline Climate Justice Leadership. The mission of the Chisholm Legacy Project is rooted in a Just Transition Framework, serving as a vehicle to connect Black communities on the frontlines of climate justice with the resources to actualize visions. Prior to the launch of the Chisholm Legacy Project, Patterson served as the Senior Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program for over a decade. During her tenure, she founded and implemented a robust portfolio which included serving the state and local leadership whose constituencies consisted of hundreds of communities on the frontlines of environmental injustice. She also led a team in designing and implementing a portfolio to support political education and organizing work executed by NAACP branches, chapters, and state conferences.
including Diana Van Vleet, Laura Kate Bender, Shyamala Rajan, Liz Scott, Natalia Reyes Becerra and Emily Thompson
Staff at the American Lung Association working on air pollution and climate change issues lead the Healthy Air Partners Coalition, a group of national public health, medical, nursing and health care organizations. The coalition advocates for measures to improve air quality, address climate change and protect public health at the federal level. Lung Association staff in Washington, DC and beyond work regularly to keep coalition members informed about key policy developments, draft group letters and public comments for members to join, organize coalition members to participate in meetings with decision-makers and other advocacy opportunities, and work with coalition members on their own clean air advocacy priorities. The coalition has been in existence for more than 15 years, and has a strong track record of weighing in with the expertise and credibility of the health voice in key federal clean air and climate decisions.
Rozina Kanchwala is a dedicated energy and environmental professional with a wealth of global academic and professional experience. As a Fulbright scholar, Rozina spent a year in India researching agrarian distress, and then completed her Masters in Environment and Sustainable Development at University College London, where she conducted field work in Accra, Ghana to better understand the challenges faced by urban farmers. Currently serving as the Director of the EDICT Partnership at the Clean Energy Leadership Institute (CELI), Rozina helps runs an internship program to increase diversity in the green sector and promote inclusivity in the industry. She is also the Founding Executive Director of Eco.Logic, an organization that uses arts, community-building, and education to inspire environmental action. In addition, Rozina is currently spearheading a land restoration project to transform an ecologically problematic corn farm into a climate solution. Rozina’s work is characterized by a creative approach that recognizes the importance of artistic and imaginative expressions in the environmental movement. In this vein, she recently wrote and produced “Love in the Time of Climate Change,” a climate comedy play that explores environmental issues through humor and creativity. Throughout her career, Rozina has remained committed to promoting inclusivity in the environmental movement. She recognizes that the scale of the environmental crisis requires a collaborative effort that leverages the diverse perspectives and talents of individuals from all walks of life. Her environmentalism is rooted in justice, as she understands that the climate crisis is linked to other systemic injustices and one cannot be solved without the other.
Dr. Jalonne L. White-Newsome is a visionary leader, public servant, advocate, teacher and entrepreneur committed to transforming communities through people-centered solutions. Affectionately known as “Dr. J”, she has a proven track record of solving complex problems, crafting and operationalizing strategy, and building relationships and trust among diverse sectors, levels of leadership, and impacted communities. Her work over the past 3 decades exhibits her unwavering commitment to equity and justice across multiple sectors, including private, public, academic, not for profit, and philanthropic sectors.
Appointed in June 2022, Dr. White-Newsome is serving as the first Federal Chief Environmental Justice Officer, where she advises the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) on environmental justice and leads the White House’s first Office of Environmental Justice.
Starting her career in chemical engineering, she first tackled environmental challenges and injustice in private industry, as well as through a wide range of positions and perspectives, including through the grassroots environmental justice movement, environmental philanthropy, state government, and academia.
Prior to joining the Biden-Harris Administration, Dr. White-Newsome founded Empowering a Green Environment and Economy, LLC, a strategic consulting firm that focused on transforming communities by using people-centered solutions to improve public health, advance racial equity, and promote environmental justice. In her time in philanthropy at The Kresge Foundation, she created the Climate Resilience and Equitable Water Systems Initiative, the first national grantmaking initiative, focused at the intersection of climate change and water inequity. Before Kresge, she served as the first Director of Federal Policy for WE ACT for Environmental Justice.
She frequently speaks across the country and has been recognized nationally for her work, advocacy and research that uplifts the impacts on the health of low-income and communities of color, due to air pollution, climate-driven extreme heat and flooding, and unprotective policy. She spends time in both Washington, DC and her home in Michigan, and is the proud wife and mother of her daughters, Arielle and Jeannelyn.
Madhvi Chittoor is a 14-year-old Eco Warrior and an SDG STEAM advocate. She is the youngest UN Child Advisor, 2024 TIME Kid of the Year Honoree, People Magazine Earth Day Featured Person, voted the Best Upcoming Peacemaker by 14 Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, Global Ambassador for EarthDay.org and Plastic Pollution Coalition. She has been a Climate Warrior since she was 5 years old and is also known as “No Styrofoam Ninja”, “No Plastic Ninja”, “Ms. Policy” and “Ban PFAs Beast”. She has ushered largescale impactful changes locally, nationally, and globally through advocacy, policy and education via signature campaigns, public speeches, testimonies, meetings with and emails to many heads-of-states, legislators, diplomats, Climate scientists, businesses, artists, educationists, etc. In September 2023 she addressed the UN Assembly in Geneva and in March 2023, she addressed the UN General Assembly in NY. As per UN she made history as the youngest UN Child Advisor in the formulation of UNGC 26. She founded the non-profit Madhvi4EcoEthics at age 6, the EcoEthics Global Movement at the age of 9 and EcoSTEAMNinjas at age 13 with operations in India, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Spain, Portugal, Brazil,etc.
A few of her policy successes are – Spearheaded 1) Global Plastic Policy with Madam VP Harris and US Secretary of State Mr. Anthony Blinken which lead to the US joining the Global Plastics Treaty, later ratified by the UNEA in March 2022 in Lisbon, Portugal 2) with EPA Water former Head Ms. Radhika Fox and US EPA Chief Mr. Michael Reagan to issue legally enforceable reduced PFAS guidance limits in Drinking water all over USA and also globally 3) with Governors to declare March as PFAS Pollution Impact Awareness Month and April as Plastic and Styrofoam Pollution Impact Awareness Month in Colorado 4) with legislators and Governors to bring about 3 laws in 2021, 2022. 2024 – to ban plastic bags and Styrofoam containers and to ban PFAS in consumer products in Colorado 5) In 2024 with ECMC on cumulative impacts and produced water governance for oil and gas industry 6) In 2021 and 2022 with EPA on Air Quality nationally and AQCC in Colorado 7) in 2020, with COGCC/ECMC the implement her suggestions as rules in the oil-and-gas permit process for surface water, stormwater and ground water conservation for the entire oil-and-gas industry in Colorado 8) the replacement of non-biodegradable carcinogenic Styrofoam lunch trays from 155 schools with 86000 students with compostable ones and eliminating 26 million Styrofoam containers from going to landfill from 2019 till date and saving the health of students and many more 9) Has designed and organized customized Climate Action and Climate Adaptation workshops, events, presentations empowering children and youth globally.
She is also an internationally recognized music composer, plays many instruments, two Guinness World Records holder, a recognized author, a Bharatanatyam dance exponent, a Taekwondo Black Belt and an inventor. . Her book “Is Plastic My Food?’ received recognition from National Geographic and the US Congress.
This celebration honors advocates for their leadership on behalf of children’s environmental health, equity, and climate action and justice. CEHN honors these incredible leaders each year at an awards ceremony in Washington DC on Children’s Environmental Health Day.
The Child Health Advocate Awards honor outstanding children’s environmental health leaders (age 22 and up) in Policy, Science, Community, Business, and Arts/Media. These child health champions have gone above and beyond to create systemic change, protecting children from environmental hazards.
The NOW Youth Leadership Award was created as part of the Children’s Environmental Health Network’s 20th-anniversary celebration in 2012, in honor of Executive Director Nsedu Obot Witherspoon. This award honors a young person who has demonstrated exceptional environmental health leadership–protecting human health, especially of our most vulnerable populations.
© Children’s Environmental Health Network, 2025
