Michelle Brier, a senior at Irvington High School in Fremont, California, has lived in the Bay Area her entire life. She has had countless opportunities to explore nature from sunny California beaches to the Santa Cruz mountains. She quickly came to love the environment around her as she discovered beauty in activities such as camping in lush forests, mountain biking with her dad, snowboarding during winter, hiking and exploring with friends, or simply going out to walk her dogs. Michelle is involved in a variety of extracurricular activities. She competes for her school’s gymnastics and swim teams, participates in various school clubs, and has logged many hours of community service.

Michelle is particularly passionate about environmental issues and has volunteered for years for local environmental causes, including working with native plants at a local wildlife refuge and doing a number of projects to raise environmental awareness in her school and community. She is also a Youth Council member at Greening Forward, a national youth-run environmental organization. From presenting to students about the importance of recycling to participating in a yearlong environmental project at her school, Michelle has certainly taken environmentalism to heart. She is especially interested in climate change and working to implement cleaner, renewable energy sources in addition to advocating for better environmental policies in businesses and the government. She views climate change as an exigent issue in today’s world and first became interested in climate change when ACE presented to a class at her school.