Sophia Kianni

In the spring of 2020, Kianni's physical activism was curtailed by the school closing and social distancing requirements of the COVID-19 pandemic, and her scheduled paid speaking engagements at colleges such as Stanford University, Princeton University, Duke University were cancelled. Kianni was able to continue her activism remotely, with her talk at Michigan Technological University. In addition, Kianni decided to accelerate development of a planned website, Climate Cardinals, that would translate information on climate change into different languages.

Kianni became interested in climate activism in middle school, when she was in Tehran, and one night she looked up at the night sky and couldn't see any stars due to the air pollution. She later joined Greta Thunberg's group, Fridays for Future, and would take time off from class to support action on climate change. She helped organize the 2019 Black Friday climate strike. By 2019 she was a national strategist for Fridays for Future, and a national partnerships coordinator for Zero Hour, another environmental advocacy group.

In November 2019, Kianni skipped school to join a group of protesters organized by Extinction Rebellion who intended to stage a week-long hunger strike and sit-in at the Washington, D.C. office of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, demanding that she speak with them for an hour on camera about climate change. Locally, there were roughly a dozen participants; at 17 years old, Kianni was the youngest, and one of two women. Kianni was not a member of XR, and only participated in the first day of the sit-in, but gave a prepared speech and interviews to the press, and continued the hunger strike remotely. Kianni wrote about her participation in the protest for Teen Vogue. By February 2020, Kianni was both a member of and a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion.

Kianni wrote a 2019 article for Teen Vogue about the Pelosi office hunger strike. In 2020, she wrote two articles about the effects of the coronavirus, for the Middle East edition of Cosmopolitan magazine about the effects on her extended family's celebration of Nowruz, and another for Refinery29 about the effects on her daily schedule as a climate activist, which was widely syndicated. She wrote an article for MTV News for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, which she helped coordinate.

Kianni lives with her mother, father, younger sister, and two pet lovebirds, in McLean, Virginia. She studied at Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Middle School, where her team won the statewide Science Olympiad, and at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, where she was a National Merit Scholarship Program semifinalist. In her senior year, 2019-2020, she took four Advanced Placement classes, and was applying to colleges to study public policy and sustainable business.

Sophia Kianni (born December 13, 2001) is an American writer and climate activist specializing in media and strategy. She works as a national strategist for Fridays for Future, an international spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion, and a national partnerships coordinator for This is Zero Hour.