PhD candidate Ufuoma Ovienmhada was chosen as one of 2024's cohort of the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice program. Ufuoma (oo-fwo-ma) Ovienmhada is an engineer by education, and remote sensing scientist by training, harnessing community-based research methods to advance the design and application of satellite remote sensing technology for environmental justice. She is a PhD candidate in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT and a member of the Space Enabled research group at the MIT Media Lab, where members apply and re-design space technologies to serve sustainability and social justice outcomes. In her PhD research, she collaborates with the Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons (FTP) to develop satellite-derived datasets and geospatial tools to support the pursuit of environmental justice in prison landscapes across the US. Before arriving at MIT, she completed a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University (2018).

The Agents of Change in Environmental Justice program, a partnership between Environmental Health News and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, has a mission to empower emerging leaders from historically excluded backgrounds in science and academia to reimagine solutions for a just and healthy planet.