Mackenzie J. Lowry

Mackenzie J. Lowry graduated from Harvard College with Highest Honors in History and Science with a secondary field in Global Health and Health Policy. She has been honored by Seventeen and Glamour magazines, being named one of Glamour's Top 10 College Women 2010 and appearing on The Today Show for her efforts. Her work has been honored by scholarship organizations such as Best Buy, Discover Card, ShopKo, and Coca-Cola. She has been profiled by several newspapers and online publications such as "Facing History and Ourselves," an organization supported by the Reebok Human Rights Foundation. An experienced anti-tobacco speaker, she has traveled across the country working to inspire fellow advocates, speaking at events such as the Young Presidents Organization Global Leadership Conference and the Johns Hopkins University Center for Social Concern Conference.

She began her work for tobacco-free legislation in high school, after her father, a longtime smoker, passed away from lung cancer. She worked with the American Cancer Society, the Iowa Health Initiative, and Clean Air For Everyone Iowa to advocate for life-saving tobacco control legislation in her home state of Iowa. In 2006, she was named the American Cancer Society's Iowa Youth Advocate of the Year, and was selected as her district representative to attend the American Cancer Society's "Celebration on the Hill" in Washington, D.C. and advocate for the Congressional Cancer Promise. Upon her admittance to Harvard, she was given a one-year deferral and used that time to fully commit to the cause, working for the American Cancer Society to see Iowa's $1 cigarette tax passed by the state legislature. As the legislation was signed into law, the Governor of Iowa cited her personally in his speech.

At Harvard, she worked for the American Cancer Society's International Affairs Department throughout her time as an undergraduate. She continued her tobacco control work by co-founding the Harvard Institute of Politics Tobacco Control Policy Group during her sophomore year of college. Alongside the policy group, she advocated for six years to create a policy change that resulted in Harvard Yard going tobacco-free in August 2014. Academically, she focused on the history of medicine and wrote her senior honors thesis under the guidance of celebrated author of The Cigarette Century, Dr. Allan Brandt.