Lyn Mikel Brown, a professor of education at Colby College, helped found the program-based Hardy Girls Healthy Women to put her research on girls’ strengths into practice. Brown is passionate about girl-led social change efforts and has published several books on the subject. Her most recent work is Powered by Girl: A Field Guide for Supporting Youth Activists. “I want girls to know how to advocate for themselves in their schools and communities, how to speak up and work with others to address injustices they witness and experience,” says Brown. She also founded poweredbygirl.org, a blog for young feminists, and co-founded the SPARK Movement activist organization, which organized a petition of Seventeen magazine against altering girls’ faces and bodies in photos. Brown, who grew up in Vanceboro and Calais, is on the board of the Cobscook Community Learning Center in the township of Trescott, near Maine’s northeastern edge. As part of CCLC’s Transforming Rural Experience in Education project, Brown is committed to working with schools and communities facing the challenges that arise from poverty. “I know how much potential there is in such communities, and I know how few resources there are,” she says. “I think we have underestimated the creative power of Maine youth- we can do so much more to enable their participation as partners in our school and community efforts.”