Kendra Pierre-Louis

Kendra Pierre-Louis is an American climate reporter and journalist. She most recently worked^[1] at Gimlet Media as a reporter and producer on the podcast How to Save a Planet, featuring Alex Blumberg and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.^[2][3][4]

Kendra Pierre-Louis
Occupation	journalist
Language	English Spanish Haitian Creole
Alma mater	Massachusetts Institute of Technology SIT Graduate Institute Cornell University
Genre	climate change

Career

Pierre-Louis previously worked at Gimlet Media, The New York Times and Popular Science.^[5][6] Her work has also appeared in Aeon, FiveThirtyEight, Sierra, InsideClimate News, Newsweek and The Washington Post.^[3] She also worked as a researcher for Terrapin Bright Green, an environmental consulting and strategic planning firm.^[7]

Her 2012 book, Green Washed: Why We Can't Buy Our Way to a Green Planet, argues that individual action and consumption capitalism do not support climate action.^[8][9][10] It was reviewed positively by Climate and Capitalism reviewer Ian Angus.^[9] Kirkus Reviews called the book "a slim but revealing investigation."^[11]

Pierre-Louis was a featured author in the book All We Can Save, contributing an essay examining what the fictional country of Wakanda can teach about climate adaptation.^[12][13][14]

Personal life

Pierre-Louis is a first-generation American born to Haitian parents and was raised speaking Spanish and Haitian Creole.^[15]

She has a Master of Science in Science Writing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master of Art in Sustainable Development from the SIT Graduate Institute, and a Bachelor of Art in Economics from Cornell University.^[3] During her graduate studies, she received a Taylor/Blakeslee University Fellowship for science writing.^[16]

She has repeatedly criticized mayonnaise,^[4][15] going so far as to publish an essay in Popular Science in 2017, calling the condiment "disgusting".^[17]

Awards and recognition

Pierre-Louis received a Sagebrush Country Institute Fellowship in 2015,^[18] and a Bringing Home the World Fellowship from the International Center for Journalists in 2016.^[8] In 2017, Pierre-Louis was selected by the National Press Foundation for national environmental journalist training.^[19] In 2020, Pierre-Louis was named Science Writer in Residence by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.^[20]

In 2019 Bustle named her one of its "25 Climate Scientists and Experts to Follow on Twitter" for climate information.^[21] She also delivered the keynote speech at the 2019 Oppenheimer Media Ethics Symposium at the University of Idaho.^[22]