The Rachel Carson Awards Council

The Rachel Carson Awards Council is a group of thirty women who help select the Rachel Carson awardees. The Council also promotes education and information on the environment. Council members meet and share information on mainstream and emerging environmental challenges annually.

In addition to reviewing the mission and achievements of Rachel Carson Award nominees from across the country, the Council provides leadership for the Women in Conservation website, and helps direct the Rachel Carson Scholarship for girls and young women. Audubon has multiple outstanding women scientists, researchers, environmental educators, and policy advocates who brief the Council at a private meeting annually.

The Rachel Carson Awards Council is made up of a cross-section of women committed to the environment - some are filmmakers and writers, local food advocates and organic farmers, green CEOs and lawyers, parks commissioners, journalists, philanthropists and foundation program officers. Over 70 percent of past honorees serve on the Council, representing their respective worlds of focus and achievement. The Council has served as a liaison between Audubon and the worlds each member comes from, sharing resources on information about great nominees, wonderful knowledge about different aspects of the environmental movement with which they are most familiar.

Allison W. Rockefeller, Rachel Carson Awards Council, Founding Chair

Allison Whipple Rockefeller is the Founding Chair of the Rachel Carson Awards Council and an enthusiastic supporter of the Women in Conservation Program. She has long been devoted to conservation issues starting as a high school volunteer with Student Conservation Association spending 10 weeks in backcountry restoration crews in Canyonlands and North Cascades National Parks. She has been a park devotee ever since and currently serves as a New York State Parks Commissioner for Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation for the New York City Region. Allison is also a long-time member of the Women's Committee of the Central Park Conservancy.

Allison is founder of Cornerstone Parks, the "Pumps-to-Parks" Initiative, which works to create a network of small parks and community centers by converting closed gas station sites and their buildings into open green space and centers for community use. She is also very interested in the exploration and communication of American heritage, history, and values, especially as these pertain to our national resources and the role of nature in shaping American history and American character.

Allison is currently engaged in a human rights awareness campaign which aims to better communicate basic human rights issues to both mainstream Americans as well as a global audience. Read full biography.

Council Members