Audrey McNeely is a junior at Carolina Friends School, where she is the co-leader of the Environmental Club. She lives in Cary, North Carolina with her parents and many pets.

Audrey cares deeply about climate disruption and the ecological health of the environment. These issues have been close to her heart much of her life. She loves to be outside observing nature. Some of her favorite things about science and nature are the systems and inner workings of ecology, which get disrupted or destroyed when the climate abruptly alters. Even at a base level, climate affects us all.

In addition to climate change, social justice issues are important to Audrey. The intersectionality of social and climate issues is vital to people of all social strata, especially young people. Not only because youth will inherit the planet, but young people also are often the most passionate about the issues they care about. The best way to educate young people is to allow their peers to share what they know.

Audrey spends her time outside of school drawing, painting, wood carving, reading, and listening to an ever-increasing feed of podcasts. Much of her time at home is spent either running around in the woods looking for animals or playing with her dogs, cats, lizard, or snake. She is a four-year veteran of the Junior Curator program at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and has been a Girl Scout for 11 years.