International Women’s Day: Women Shaping the Future
Celebrating women who translate research into action, influencing how we build, breathe and belong.
WORDS Elissa Rose
International Women’s Day is a moment to celebrate leadership that reshapes how we live, create and care. In the fields of climate, buildings, air quality and digital wellbeing, women are driving research, policy and cultural change with clarity and resolve. Their work does not sit at the margins, rather it influences how cities are designed, how homes support health and how future generations relate to the natural world. Here, we highlight six women whose work bridges science and storytelling, systems and everyday life, reminding us that sustainable progress is inseparable from human wellbeing.
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Victoria Herrmann, Executive Director of Preserving Legacies and a National Geographic Explorer. Photo courtesy of National Geographic |
Rachel Hodgdon, President and CEO, International WELL Building Institute. Photo courtesy of Rachel Hodgdon |
Victoria Herrmann, Ph.D.
Executive Director of Preserving Legacies | National Geographic Explorer
Dr. Victoria Herrmann is a geographer and storyteller whose work connects climate science with lived experience. As a National Geographic Explorer and executive director of Preserving Legacies, she focuses on climate adaptation in some of the world’s most vulnerable regions. Her research centers on communities facing sea level rise and thawing permafrost, translating complex environmental shifts into human narratives that demand attention.
Herrmann’s approach is grounded in justice. She advocates for equitable adaptation strategies that prioritize frontline communities rather than abstract policy targets. By bridging data with personal stories, she reframes climate change as a present reality that reshapes homes, infrastructure and cultural heritage. Her work underscores a core belief that resilience begins with listening, and that design must respond to both ecological systems and the people who inhabit them.
Rachel Hodgdon
President and CEO, International WELL Building Institute
As President and CEO of the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), Rachel Hodgdon has helped redefine how the built environment supports health. Under her leadership, the WELL Building Standard has expanded globally, influencing workplaces, schools and homes to consider air, water, light and materials as essential components of human wellbeing.
Hodgdon’s work brings rigor to a field that was once seen as optional. She positions health as a measurable performance benchmark. By aligning science, policy and market demand, she has helped shift conversations within real estate and development toward accountability and transparency. Her leadership demonstrates that buildings are active participants in shaping how we feel, function and flourish.
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Abeer Seikaly is a Palestinian Jordanian interdisciplinary creative thinker and maker. Photo courtesy of Sueraya Shaheen |
Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert, writer, and teacher. Photo courtesy of Landon Speers |
Abeer Seikaly
Founder, Studio Abeer Seikaly
Abeer Seikaly is a Jordanian Palestinian interdisciplinary thinker and maker whose work bridges architecture, craft and cultural production. Based in Amman, she describes her practice as a form of social technology rooted in acts of memory. Through fieldwork with Bedouin women in Jordan’s Badia desert and collaborations within palm based craft ecologies in Al Ahsa, she repositions indigenous knowledge as embodied design intelligence.
Her award winning project Weaving a Home and her ongoing work Tirhal: To Al Ahsa explore shelter as both structure and story. Abeer’s exhibitions span institutions from the Museum of Modern Art in New York to the Vitra Design Museum in Basel, yet her focus remains intimate. She “reads backwards while writing forwards,” cultivating spaces where dignity, memory and material wisdom endure.
Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Co Founder, Urban Ocean Lab | Co Editor, All We Can Save
Marine biologist and policy expert Dr Ayana Elizabeth Johnson works at the intersection of climate science and justice. Through initiatives such as Urban Ocean Lab and the anthology All We Can Save, she centers women’s voices in climate leadership while advancing practical, community based solutions.
Johnson’s work expands the climate conversation beyond emissions targets to include equity, coastal resilience and economic transformation. She emphasizes that climate action must improve lives in the present, particularly for communities historically excluded from decision making. By pairing research with cultural storytelling, she creates pathways for collective engagement. Her vision is about preventing harm and about designing a regenerative future that feels tangible and shared.
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Dr. Rekha Chaudhari, Founder of World Digital Detox Day. Photo courtesy of DNA India |
Plum Stone, Founder and CEO of The Safer Air Project and Co Chair of the IWBI's Global Commission on Healthy Indoor Air. Photo courtesy of The Safer Air Project |
Dr. Rekha Chaudhari
Founder, World Digital Detox Day
Dr. Rekha Chaudhari is a researcher and advocate for a smartphone free childhood and the founder of World Digital Detox Day. Her work examines how constant connectivity affects mental health, attention and development, particularly for young people growing up in a fully digital world.
Chaudhari’s advocacy is not anti technology. Instead it calls for balance and informed boundaries. By promoting digital pauses and greater awareness of screen exposure, she invites families and institutions to reconsider how devices shape daily rhythms. Her research highlights links between excessive smartphone use and anxiety, disrupted sleep and reduced in person connection. In a culture that equates availability with productivity, her work is a reminder that wellbeing requires protected space for rest, imagination and offline presence.
Plum Stone
Founder and CEO, The Safer Air Project | Co Chair, IWBI Global Commission on Healthy Indoor Air
Plum Stone is the founder and CEO of The Safer Air Project and serves as Co Chair of the Global Commission on Healthy Indoor Air at the International WELL Building Institute. Her work focuses on indoor air pollution, an often invisible factor that profoundly affects respiratory health, cognitive function and long term wellbeing.
Stone translates technical air quality research into accessible guidance for schools, workplaces and homes. She advocates for improved ventilation, filtration and material awareness, particularly in spaces where children learn and grow. By elevating indoor air as a public health priority, she challenges the assumption that what we cannot see cannot harm us. Her leadership reinforces a simple but urgent truth: clean air is foundational to healthy living, and it must be treated as a shared responsibility.
Feature Image: KseniaJoyg/Adobe
