Big change can stem from small ideas.

Erin Fitzgerald has spent the last seven years serving as Senior National Communications and Media Stategist for Healthy Communities at Earthjustice, the premier nonprofit public interest environmental law organization. Earthjustice wields the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people’s health, to preserve magnificent places and wildlife, to advance clean energy, and to combat climate change.

In her role, Erin fought to protect communities from toxic exposures to pollution, the right to safe housing, clean air and water, and better conditions for people in immigrant detention centers across the country. She also led communications efforts for several national coaltions and campaigns, including prominent Supreme Court cases.

Prior to Earthjustice, Erin worked with the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment to increase their media profile in collaboration with communities in California’s Central Valley. Her work focused on facilitating story telling with impacted community members to achieve policy changes at the state and local level.

Erin also worked at Media Matters for America as the LGBTQ Program Director, where she tracked LGBTQ-related media cycles, respresentation and diversity in mainsteam media, and anti-LGBTQ extremism and disinformation in news coverage.

As a result of her expertise, Erin has been invited to speak at the United Nation’s Commission on the Status of Women, where she led trainings on how to use proactive media engagement to marginalize extremisist narratives and advance gender justice. She was also invited to present her research at the White House on the impact of government shutdown on federal programming for LGBTQ people and communities.

Erin recieved her Master’s of Public Administration from the Trachtenberg School at the George Washington University. While in her graduate program, Erin worked as a Civil Rights Portfolio Specialist at the White House, as well as a research fellow at the National LGBTQ Task Force. Upon graduating, she was invited to serve as a Public Policy Research Fellow at Williams Institure at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law. She recieved her bachelor’s degree in Gender Studies from Rutgers University, New Brunswick.

Erin currently resides in the Manayunk neighborhood of Philadelphia with her dog, Hoagie, and cat, Jack. She frequently travels to New York and D.C. and is open to opportunities across the country.