Mays Smithwick – Jacqui Drechsler
Mays Smithwick is a PhD student of American Studies at Yale University, and a Graduate Fellow of Environmental Humanities at the Whitney Center for the Humanities. They work with the National Radioactive Waste Coalition and the New York Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Mays’s research and practice is informed through methods for environmental justice. Their work aims towards the total abolition of nuclear technology and more broadly, the dismantling of imperialism.
Jacqui Drechsler has been involved in environmental and human activism for the past 40 years. Jacqui is a classical flutist (who has played with folk singers Susan Reed and Pete Seeger). When her parents moved to Rockland County on the shores of the mighty and beautiful Hudson River in 1958, they had no idea a nuclear power plant was being planned at Indian Point. They were involved in the fight against nuclear power (the bomb, military and commercial nuclear power) and Jacqui carries on their legacy.
