Marielle Anzelone

New York City

Marielle Anzelone is an urban ecologist whose work centers on people’s daily connections with nearby nature and the role that design, education, and government can play in fostering this relationship. She is the founder and executive director of NYC Wildflower Week—an organization that produces cultural and educational programming to engage urbanites with the wilds of the Big Apple. Marielle is a regular contributor to the New York Times. She is also advancing local biodiversity policy. A bill that she helped develop, supporting native plants in public landscapes, became law in 2013. November 2014 she is launching a kickstarter campaign to support her public art installation PopUp Forest: Times Square. Filled with towering trees, native shrubs and wildflowers, the forest will give urbanites an immersive natural area experience in the most iconically un-natural place on the planet—coming June 2016.