Leading the Change: Women Shaping a Sustainable Future

On View through March 2026

New York State Capitol

Governor's Reception Room

“Leading the Change: Women Shaping a Sustainable Future” honors New York women whose work in science, conservation, and environmental justice has supported both people and the planet for over 150 years.

The stories featured here reveal how courageous women used scientific research, education, and public advocacy to protect natural resources and communities, and promote a more equitable and sustainable society for all New Yorkers.

Some women helped lay the groundwork for future leaders. Others worked alongside or were inspired by figures like Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring sparked the modern environmental movement by exposing the dangers of indiscriminate pesticide use. Or Joan Kaplan Davidson, Carol Ash, and Rose Harvey, whose combined leadership of over 30 years protected and expanded access to New York’s public lands.

These women not only positively affected the time in which they lived, but they also forged new paths and expanded opportunities for generations of women to follow. We honor these historic trailblazers and the modern New York women who are leading the change.

The following women, whether working in often male-dominated fields as professors, scientists, or researchers, demystified the sciences and brought their critical research into the public sphere, broadening its impact to a larger audience.

Anna Botsford Comstock (1854-1930)

Anna Botsford Comstock was raised in a small town in Cattaraugus County with an appreciation for nature. This passion carried her throughout her career as Cornell University’s first female professor and “The Mother of Nature Study.”

While attending Cornell, Comstock became known for her detailed drawings of plant life, published in university curricula leaflets. After meeting her future husband and entomology professor, John Henry Comstock, she expanded her artistic expertise to include insects. These illustrations were published alongside her husband’s findings.

In 1895, the New York State Committee for Promotion of Agriculture commissioned her to advocate for agriculture and nature studies in public schools. In 1911, she compiled all of her student lesson plans and published them as “The Handbook of Nature Study,” which remains in print today.

Caption: Anna Botsford Comstock, Nature Study Portrait. Image courtesy of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

Emmeline Moore (1872-1963)

Emmeline Moore developed an early appreciation for waterways and their ecosystems as a child exploring the swamps around her home in Batavia, New York. After studying biology, she taught botany in South Africa and New York. During World War I, she researched fisheries to assess their importance as aquatic resources during wartime food shortages, which helped inspire her lifelong occupation in aquatic conservation.

In 1920, Moore became the first woman scientist employed by the New York State Department of Conservation. She later led the New York State Biological Survey, which produced some of the most comprehensive studies on the state’s aquatic resources of its time. By 1932, she became the state’s chief aquatic biologist.

A frequent public speaker and radio show guest, Moore was an advocate for bringing science out of the lab and making it accessible to the public.

Caption: Emmeline Moore. Image courtesy of the American Fisheries Society. 

Mildred Dresselhaus (1930-2017)

Mildred Dresselhaus is known as the “Queen of Carbon.” Raised in New York City, she was inspired by her Nobel Prize-winning physics teacher Rosalyn Yalow to become a physicist. In 1968, she secured a full professorship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she worked for over 50 years.

Her work had a great impact on the future of nanotechnology and contributed to innovations in smartphones, water filtration systems, space programs, and more. As a leader and mentor, Dresselhaus encouraged her female students to enter the traditionally male-dominated fields of science and engineering.

She was the first woman to win the National Medal of Science and Engineering (1990) and received other accolades, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2014), and was inducted into the U.S. National Inventors Hall of Fame (2014).

Caption: Mildred Dresselhaus. Image courtesy of MIT News.

Environmental activism is strongly tied to social justice, and marginalized communities are more likely to experience ecological harm and dangers due to systemic inequalities, such as a lack of access to clean air and water.

Betty Lyons

Gaeñ hia uh, also known as Betty Lyons, is the President and Executive Director of American Indian Law Alliance (AILA), and an environmental activist from the Onondaga Nation. For over 20 years, her work has focused on educating the public on the Doctrine of Discovery and the forced displacement of many Indigenous peoples from their lands.

She has also raised awareness of and advocated for the Onondaga Nation’s sacred relationship with nature by leading the charge to restore the notoriously polluted Onondaga Lake. According to Lyons, this work “is a vital step toward restoring this sacred place, bringing long-overdue healing to its people, the surrounding communities, and the natural world.”

Alongside her work with the AILA, she has worked with many organizations, including the Center for Earth Ethics, Skä•noñh- Great Law of Peace Center Academic Collaborative. Lyons is an Advisory Committee Member for the National Institute for Law and Justice and Co-Chair of the Center of Earth Ethics Advisory Board.

Caption: Gaeñ hia uh, Betty Lyons, President & Executive Director of the American Indian Law Alliance (AILA). Photo by Mike Greenlar | Central Current.

Love Canal, Niagara Falls

Love Canal refers to William Love’s late 19th-century model community and canal project, which was abandoned, and the canal eventually became a landfill for the city of Niagara Falls.

Between 1942 and 1953, the Hooker Chemical Company obtained government approval to dump over 21,000 tons of chemical waste into the deserted canal, while housing developments, schools, and playgrounds continued to be built nearby. In the 1970s, residents began experiencing illnesses and realized the horrors of what was located underground.

In 1978, Love Canal resident Lois Gibbs connected her son’s school, built on top of the waste site, to his recent unexplained illness and raised the alarm with local families, ultimately creating the Love Canal Homeowners Association. Gibbs spent three years organizing and fighting large corporations, eventually successfully relocating over 800 homes from Love Canal. In response, the U.S. Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980.

While Lois Gibbs became the face of the homeowner movement, Agnes Jones, Vera Starks, Elene Thorton, and Sarah Herbert — Black women renting in a nearby apartment complex called Griffon Manor — became aware they were excluded from the relocation movement. Together, they enlisted the NAACP's help and formed the Concerned Love Canal Renters Association.

Caption: Love Canal community activist Lois Gibbs on the telephone at the Love Canal Homeowners Association offices, Niagara Falls, New York. Image courtesy of the State University of New York at Buffalo University Archives. 

Early-to-mid 20th-century women boldly challenged gender norms through skillful advocacy and scientific expertise, reshaping the predominantly male field of environmental conservation.

Rosalie Barrow Edge (1877-1962)

Born into prominence, Rosalie Edge used her wealth and privilege, alongside her education and activism, to advance environmental justice.

In 1929, Edge learned of the plight of many North American birds from the pamphlet, “A Crisis in Conservation.” Thousands of birds were being slaughtered for sport and fashion, and many were in danger of extinction. That same year, she founded the Emergency Conservation Committee and, using the skills she developed as a suffragist, Edge began publicly criticizing the National Audubon Society and federal agencies for failing to uphold their conservation mission and for allowing commercial interests to dictate conservation policy.

Edge wrote press releases, letters, and pamphlets, and made public appearances to support the preservation of all birds and their habitats. With this information public, the Audubon Society’s membership demanded change, and new management emerged in 1934. That same year, Edge founded the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania, the world’s first refuge for birds of prey.

Edge understood the importance of protecting entire ecosystems as interconnected “living chains,” a revolutionary idea in the early days of the conservation movement that helped shape modern environmentalism.

Caption: Edge, seen here at Hawk Mountain, was also critical in influencing the establishment of Olympic and Kings Canyon National Parks, and in strengthening protections at Yosemite and Yellowstone. Image courtesy of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. 

Anne LaBastille (1935-2011)

Trained as a wildlife ecologist, Anne LaBastille earned her doctorate from Cornell University in 1969, becoming the first woman to study wildlife ecology at the university and eventually serving as the university's first female professor of natural resources. She later became one of the first women licensed as a New York State outdoor guide and a leading voice for conservation in the Adirondack Mountains.

LaBastille is best known for building a log cabin and living on 20 isolated acres on Twitchell Lake in the Adirondacks. From here, she wrote the popular “Woodswoman” book series, which inspired generations of women to explore nature and learn self-reliance. She also wrote over 150 articles for several wildlife magazines, including Sierra Club and National Geographic.

As a consultant to environmental non-profits worldwide, LaBastille played a significant role in shaping New York’s environmental policy. She served for 17 years as a commissioner of the Adirondack Park Agency, notably as the first female commissioner and the first with a formal scientific background in wildlife ecology. LaBastille warned about threats such as acid rain, invasive species, and overdevelopment, and about maintaining the park’s wild character.

Following her passing in 2011, the LaBastille Estate donated approximately 280 acres of private land in the Adirondacks to the state forest preserve in 2016.

Caption: Early in her career, LaBastille became the first female Audubon Society tour guide. Image courtesy of ADK Taste.

Deeply connected to the battle to protect natural resources is the fight to ensure all communities have access to a hygienic, wholesome, and sustainable environment.

Peggy Shepard

Peggy Shepard has dedicated 40 years of her life to ensuring that all communities, regardless of race or income, have the right to clean air, safe water, and healthy neighborhoods.

Her work began in West Harlem in the 1980s, when she learned that New York City’s largest sewage treatment plant and a large diesel bus depot were being constructed in her neighborhood. She recognized that her community was a “sacrifice zone,” an area targeted for the disproportionate burden of pollution, which primarily affects neighborhoods of Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities.

On Martin Luther King Day in January 1988, Shepard, joined by then State Senator David Paterson and five others, held up traffic on the West Side Highway to protest the pollution from the new sewage plant. The media dubbed them the “Sewage Seven.”

Their advocacy led to a $55 million commitment to fix the North River plant and to retrofit New York City buses to run on alternative fuels. As part of the settlement, a $1.1 million health fund enabled Shepard to co-found West Harlem Environmental Action, now known as WE ACT for Environmental Justice. WE ACT helps communities organize, build capacity, and change legislation to advance environmental justice.

Caption: Peggy Shepard and Sutton Percy protesting the environmental conditions of Harlem in New York’s Foley Square, 1980s. Image courtesy of WE ACT for Environmental Justice.

Frances “Franny” Reese (1917-2003)

In 1963, New Yorker Frances "Franny" Reese joined a group of concerned Hudson Valley residents to oppose a massive hydroelectric plant proposed by Con Edison on Storm King Mountain. The group feared that the project would not only scar the iconic mountain top but also impact the fragile Hudson River ecosystem and residents' water quality.

Determined to protect natural beauty, environmental resources, and public health, Reese co-founded the Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference, which today is known as Scenic Hudson, launching a 17-year legal and grassroots campaign to stop the project.

Their efforts, combined with those of Hudson River striped bass fishermen who relied on the river's health for their livelihood, led to the groundbreaking "Scenic Hudson Decision." For the first time, citizens won the legal right to challenge environmentally harmful projects in federal court and demand alternatives. This established a precedent that shaped environmental law nationwide and became a springboard for the Environmental Protection Act.

Reese served as chair of Scenic Hudson's board from 1966 to 1984, leading efforts to preserve land, promote environmental education, halt harmful development, and pass environmental laws. To honor Reese's lasting impact on environmental protection throughout the state and nation, the Franny Reese State Park was established in Highland, New York, in 2009.

In the words of New Yorker Franny Reese: "Care enough to take action. Do your research so you don't have to backtrack from a position. And don't give up!"