Meredith C F Powers

Dr. Meredith C.F. Powers (she/her/hers) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work at UNC Greensboro (land of a number of Indigenous peoples, specifically the Keyauwee and Saura). She teaches, facilitates community-engaged, action research, and has co-authored and co-edited a growing body of open-access work on topics of climate justice, climate migration, ecosocial and kinship worldviews, eco-therapeutic practices for healing, and justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. She has presented her research nationally and internationally at professional conferences, including being invited as a keynote speaker at the United Nations for World Social Work Day (2018). Dr. Powers was recently a keynote speaker, presenting “Collaboration and Current Efforts for Climate Justice”, and was honored with the inaugural “Environmental Justice Champion Award” at the 2021 Virtual Conference on Environmental Justice, hosted by the Institute for Social Work and Environmental Justice in partnership with Adelphi University. Dr. Powers is the founding Director of the Climate Justice Program of the International Federation of Social Workers. She also established and co-administers the global Green / Environmental Social Work Collaborative Network. Nationally, Dr. Powers serves as a member of the Grand Challenges for Social Work committee, “Create Social Responses to a Changing Environment.” Locally, Dr. Powers is a founding board member of the “IDEAL League”, which has the mission to provide equitable access to inclusive literacy materials and educational activities that affirm, advocate for, and empower youth, including climate literacy. Additionally, Dr. Powers has initiated and/or co-led several community-engaged action research projects, such as, “Parks for All People”, for the extensive enhancement of Smith Active Adult Center’s outdoor recreation spaces; “Climates of Inequality: Stories of Environmental Justice”, focused on global and local climate migration and resettlement; and, most recently, “All That We Share”, an inclusive community public art project that will serve to enhance our community as we advocate for inclusive excellence, celebrate our diversity, and strengthen our bonds to each other and our environment.