Environmental Law Institute - National Wetlands Awards

Ms. Susan Vincent teaches Earth and Marine Sciences and chairs the science department at The Young Women’s Leadership School of East Harlem in New York City. A college prep public school serving inner-city girls in grades 6-12, TYWLS is one of five urban all-girls public schools supported by the Young Women’s Leadership Network, which provides high quality education to low income families.

Ms. Vincent began teaching to infuse her students with a passion for wetlands protection and preservation. In 2004, she began working with wetland ecologists at Loyola University New Orleans to bring her students to southern Louisiana to conduct wetlands research over spring break. A year later, in partnership with Columbia University Lamont-Doherty researchers, Ms. Vincent and her students began field work in New York’s Piermont Marsh to assess the system’s health and observe long term changes. Ms. Vincent helps ensure that the students' data is of publishable quality and useful for long range assessment. The work serves as a springboard for student participation in science fair competitions and conference presentations. Given the success of her programs, Ms. Vincent and her collaborators plan to expand them to include a summer exchange so that the students can conduct comparative studies of the southern Louisiana wetlands and Piermont Marsh.

Ms. Vincent earned her Bachelor’s degree in Geology with a minor in Marine Science in 2000, and her Master’s degree in Science Education in 2002, both at Smith College.