Lauren Elizabeth Wiggins

Lauren Elizabeth Wiggins grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. She spent part of her early childhood climbing

the Yoshino cherry tree in her front yard, observing the insects crawling along its bark, and plunging

her feet into the red clay soil. She traces her love of nature to those formative moments.

 

As a second year grad student at Yale School of the Environment, Lauren has a keen focus on infusing

ecosystem conservation with equitable urban design. She holds a BS from Tennessee State

University—a historically black university and southern family legacy that both her grandmother and

mother attended before her. She comes from a family that believes in being the change and creating

your own solutions.

 

She found her passion for environmental justice while engaging in undergraduate research in air

quality disparities Nashville, and eventually in Paris–for the United Nations’ COP21–during a

student-led march proclaiming “we can’t breathe”. After undergrad, she continued to hold onto

activism as an organizer with national and global non-profits.

 

She gravitated to water quality analysis and stream restoration work in her hometown. Part of her job

was to coordinate events where communities learned how to conduct chemical and bacterial

assessments of the tributaries and river basins from which water is sourced. Her current research is a

continuation of that work.

 

Lauren aims to understand socio-ecological challenges and the systems that perpetuate them, while

creating avenues to resources that help develop community-driven solutions. In addition to her passion

for people and the planet, Lauren enjoys making her own jewelry, bike sharing through urban

landscapes, and sauntering barefoot in forests during the spring and summer months. You can find her

immersed in Medieval fantasy and Afrofuturistic media, working to craft resilient, yet evolving urban

designs that honor society’s past and reimagine its future.