American marine biologist, author, and conservationist.

Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring advanced the environmental movement and led to the banning of DDT and other pesticides, and to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during Nixon’s presidency.  Carson worked for the US Bureau of Fisheries (which became the US Fish and Wildlife Service). She wrote and did radio programs educating the public on aquatic life. While at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Carson did research on marine life, eventually writing the bestseller, The Sea Around Us, a life history of the ocean. Carson worked with the Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy and others. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980, posthumously.