Sharon Smith is the Program Director for the New Leaders Initiative and Brower Youth Awards at Earth Island Institute. These programs honor young environmental leaders in North America for their outstanding activism and achievements. Sharon has worked extensively with student networks to achieve victories pushing banks out of dirty energy projects and loggers out of old growth forests. In addition, Sharon has led youth on extended wilderness backpacking and cross-country bike touring trips in the United States. She launched her career in environmental advocacy in 1999 with a year-long fellowship with Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing.