Kimi Waite, Ph.D.

Dr. Kimi Waite is an award-winning Asian American scholar-activist, author, innovation leader, and National Geographic Explorer with expertise in climate change and environmental justice education. A former elementary school teacher in South Los Angeles and a STEM curriculum specialist in Compton, California, she has received both national and state recognition for her leadership in environmental education, social studies and climate change education. She is a Fellow with the UCLA Center for Developing Leadership in Science; the 2021 California Council for the Social Studies Outstanding Elementary Social Studies Teacher of the Year; a 2021 Public Voices Fellow on the Climate Crisis with the OpEd Project and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication; and a 2019 Environmental Education 30 Under 30, awarded by the North American Association for Environmental Education. Since 2019, she has been a steering committee member for California’s statewide climate change initiative, the Environmental and Climate Change Literacy Projects. She is a co-author of the book, “What Teachers Want to Know About Teaching Climate Change: An Educator’s Guide to Nurturing Hope and Resilience (Grades K-12),” and the author of the book, “Teaching Environmental Justice in the Elementary Classroom: Entry Points for Equity Across the K-5 Curriculum.”