After watching her husband survive a brain tumor and witnessing unusual illnesses within her inner circle, Emily Donovan became co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, a grassroots community group that formed in 2017 after learning DuPont and Chemours contaminated North Carolina’s water supply with PFAS for decades. She is also a member of the leadership team for the National PFAS Contamination Coalition. Donovan has helped secure reverse osmosis filling stations for 49 public schools, worked to get local residents included in a PFAS exposure study, and helped organize community liaisons to inform the first ever national clinical guidance for PFAS. She has testified before Congress twice, and her advocacy encouraged the US EPA to establish first ever federal drinking water standards for PFAS. Internationally, her efforts resulted in the United Nations Human Rights Council publicly calling out DuPont and Chemours for business-related human rights abuses. She has been recognized by the UN as a human rights defender.