Alexandria Villaseñor (born May 18, 2005)[1] is an American climate activist living in New York. A follower of the Fridays for Future movement and of fellow climate activist Greta Thunberg,[2] Villaseñor is a co-founder of U.S. Youth Climate Strike and the founder of Earth Uprising.[3]
Villaseñor graduated high school in May 2024. Villaseñor started studying at Harvard University in the fall of 2024 and is a member of the Class of 2028.[10][11]
Activism
Villaseñor's fight for climate action was sparked when she was caught in a smoke cloud from the November 2018 Camp Fire in California, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California's history, while visiting her hometown for Thanksgiving.[12][13] As an asthma sufferer, she became physically ill, during which time she researched the climate change and temperature rises which contributed to the fire's severity.[5] Her mother, Kristin Hogue, was enrolled in the M.A. in Climate and Society program at Columbia University[5] and Villaseñor would occasionally attend class with her mother, where she learned about the underlying science of climate change.[14] Soon afterward, she joined New York's chapter of Zero Hour, a group of American youth climate activists.[5]
Villaseñor has taken similar climate action to Thunberg, who inspired her with her December 4, 2018 talk at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP24) in Katowice, Poland. Since December 14, 2018 (while COP24 was still held),[5] she skips school every Friday in order to protest against lack of climate action in front of the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York.[15][13][16] She is no longer involved with the US Youth Climate Strike group[17] and founded the climate change education group Earth Uprising.[18]
When Thunberg arrived in New York City from her transatlantic sailboat voyage in August 2019, Villaseñor, Xiye Bastida, and other climate activists greeted Thunberg upon arrival.[19] By that time, they had already established contact with each other over social media.[20]
In September 2019, she spoke at the Global Citizen Festival in New York along with Bastida and Selina Neirok Leem.[21]
Alexandria saw a need to provide more support and education to the global youth climate movement, prompting her to found Earth Uprising International on April 22, 2019.[27] Earth Uprising International is a global nonprofit organization that focuses on climate education and youth mobilization to empower grassroots change from the local level upward.[28]
In May 2019, Villaseñor was the recipient of the Disruptor Award from the Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards (TDIA),[30] received a scholarship from The Common Good public advocacy organization,[31][32] and was awarded a Youth Climate Leadership prize from Earth Day Network.[33]
On December 1, 2020, she was named by Seventeen magazine as one of their 2020 Voices of the Year.[34]
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