The 2026 Dr. Espanola Jackson Energy Justice Award Nominees
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We are thrilled to announce the top 10 finalists for the Dr. Espanola Jackson Energy Justice Award, honoring leaders who embody Dr. Jackson’s pioneering vision of equitable clean energy and community empowerment. These exceptional advocates represent a powerful convergence of environmental protection, social justice, and energy justice, working tirelessly to ensure that communities historically excluded from environmental decision-making become the architects of sustainable clean energy solutions.
United by their commitment to workforce development, community organizing, and policy advocacy, these finalists have dedicated their careers to creating pathways from economic hardship to clean energy prosperity while centering the voices of those most impacted by environmental harm. Their work spans Tribal energy sovereignty, housing justice and climate resilience, legal advocacy for equitable policies, and grassroots organizing that builds bridges between environmental protection and community empowerment. Each finalist demonstrates that true environmental progress must be rooted in equity, community ownership, and the radical belief that the transition to clean energy should uplift rather than displace vulnerable communities—carrying forward Dr. Jackson’s transformative legacy of making environmental justice synonymous with human dignity and opportunity.
Andrea Pierce
Role: Deputy Director of Programming at the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition
Andrea Pierce is Deputy Director of Programming at the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition and a citizen of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians. An Anishinaabek organizer and longtime advocate for Native rights, she has led grassroots efforts to protect Tribal lands, treaty rights, and the Great Lakes, including organizing across Michigan to shut down Line 5 and stop the proposed Enbridge tunnel. She also serves on environmental and watershed councils representing water protection and impacted communities.
Arturo Massol-Deyá
Role: Executive Director of Casa Pueblo de Adjuntas
Arturo Massol-Deyá is Executive Director of Casa Pueblo de Adjuntas, a community self-management organization in Puerto Rico. Under his leadership, Casa Pueblo has advanced a community-driven energy transition, installing more than 400 solar projects and 3,000 panels, including Adjuntas Pueblo Solar, Puerto Rico’s first microgrid governed by its users. A former University of Puerto Rico biology professor, Massol-Deyá has spent decades advancing energy as a human right and building models for community energy ownership in Puerto Rico and beyond.
Adrienna Farrar Houel
Role: President & CEO at Greater Bridgeport Community Enterprises, Inc.
Adrienne Farrar Houël is founder, President, and CEO of Greater Bridgeport Community Enterprises, where she creates economic opportunities through sustainable businesses, workforce development, and community investment. Her work has helped train and employ low-income residents, expand affordable housing, grow green businesses, and advance environmental justice in Bridgeport and across Connecticut. She has also held numerous state and local leadership roles focused on energy efficiency, climate resilience, recycling, and equitable economic development.
Dulce Ortiz
Role: Community Advocate at Clean Power Lake County
Dulce Ortiz is a co-founder and co-chair of Clean Power Lake County and a longtime environmental justice advocate in Waukegan, Illinois. For more than a decade, she helped lead the community’s campaign for a just transition from the Waukegan coal plant and brought national attention to the health and civil rights impacts of coal ash pollution. Ortiz also serves in numerous community and statewide leadership roles, using grassroots organizing to advance environmental, economic, racial, and immigrant justice.
Eric Walker
Role: Energy Justice Senior Policy Manager at WE ACT for Environmental Justice
Eric Walker is Energy Justice Senior Policy Manager at WE ACT for Environmental Justice and a Buffalo-based leader working to make clean energy more accessible to underserved communities. A co-founder of PUSH Buffalo, he helped champion New York’s first statewide community-driven energy services program and later developed Erie County initiatives supporting energy-insecure families and community solar. At WE ACT, he has helped secure major increases in funding for energy efficiency, building electrification, and programs serving low- and moderate-income New Yorkers.
Beto Lugo Martinez
Role: Grassroots Director of RiS4EJ
Beto Lugo Martinez is Executive Director of RiSE4EJ and an environmental justice leader focused on community-led research, public health, and grassroots organizing. Drawing on his experience growing up near a petrochemical facility, he works to ensure frontline communities are recognized as experts in decisions affecting their health and environment. His work connects residents, researchers, and policymakers through participatory research and advocacy, and he has advised national public health, academic, and federal institutions on environmental justice.
Mary Wambui
Role: Director of Asset Management, Residents and Energy at the Planning Office for Urban Affairs
Mary Wambui is Director of Asset Management, Residents, and Energy at the Planning Office for Urban Affairs and a leader in housing, energy equity, and environmental justice. Her work centers affordable housing residents and historically marginalized communities in decisions about solar, energy storage, utility policy, and clean energy infrastructure. Through statewide councils, working groups, research, and regulatory advocacy in Massachusetts, she has pushed for stronger energy affordability, utility accountability, and meaningful community power in energy decision-making.
Katherine T. Egland
Role: Deputy Executive Director at Education, Economics, Environmental, Climate, and Health Organization (EEECHO)
Katherine T. “Kathy” Egland is co-founder of the Education, Economics, Environmental, Climate, and Health Organization and a longtime environmental and climate justice leader. A national NAACP board member and chair of its Environmental and Climate Justice Committee, she has championed solar access, net metering, and energy democracy while challenging barriers facing low-income communities and communities of color. Her organizing in Mississippi has also helped advance distributed energy policies and contributed to the decommissioning of coal-burning operations at Plant Watson.
Joel Iboa
Role: Founding Executive Director at Oregon Just Transition Alliance
Joel Iboa is Founding Executive Director of the Oregon Just Transition Alliance and a leader in environmental, climate, and immigrant justice. He helped lead Oregon’s Clean Energy Opportunity campaign and the passage of a major climate resilience package that secured $90 million in state funding with $1 billion in matching federal funds. Iboa has also built statewide coalitions, helped direct resources to grassroots environmental justice organizations, and served in leadership roles advancing community resilience, immigrant rights, and equitable climate policy.
Scott Onque
Role: Policy Director at Faith In Place
Pastor Scott Onque is Policy Director at Faith in Place and longtime pastor of St. Luke Missionary Baptist Church on Chicago’s South Side. Through his faith and community leadership, he advocates for environmental and social justice and works to connect community engagement with public policy. He has served on numerous community boards and commissions and views environmental justice and civic involvement as integral parts of his ministry and commitment to serving others.