Youth Activist and Journalist

Evan Michaeli lives in Newton, Mass., and attends Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. He has been an avid environmentalist since sixth grade, when he lived with his grandmother in Newport, R.I. During that sixth-grade year, he participated in cleanups on Easton’s Beach with Clean Ocean Access. The cleanups led to Evan passing a plastic bag bill in Portsmouth, R.I. At the end of the year, Evan presented in front of 100,000 attendees at The Ocean Race about coral bleaching. After that year, Evan led the charge in the Dedham bag ban, where he sat on a committee that wrote part of the bylaw and did research on alternatives to bags and economic impact.

Recently, Evan was the leading force in a successful effort to reduce plastics in Newton, along with fighting for ocean rights and the SDGs at conferences at the UN, organizing multiple summits on renewable energy and circular economies, and creating a bill to enhance climate justice education in the state of Massachusetts. At Macalester, Evan started work with food justice and plans to host an event in April 2026. In addition, Evan has won several international awards for his writing on environmental issues.