Jim Powell is a longtime community organizer and environmental activist based in Wisconsin. He has worked for Citizens for a Better Environment and the Wisconsin Stewardship Network, as well as co-founding the Midwest Environmental Justice Organization in Madison with his late wife, Maria, and others. He worked for years as a community organizer developing neighborhood capacity, protecting land from development, editing and publishing a community newspaper and building a local alternative political party, Progressive Dane (County). He is co-author with Maria Powell of "Invisible People, Invisible Risks: How Scientific Assessments of Environmental Health Risks Overlook Minorities and How Commmunity Participation Can Make Them Visible," published by MIT Press.