About

Shannon Galpin is a social justice activist, author, artist, and filmmaker. She has spent over a decade working in Afghanistan through her non-profit, Mountain2Mountain. As a survivor of gender violence, she has been an outspoken voice and activist in gender-based violence and gender-based discrimination in the legal system that upholds violence against women.

Shannon is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. She is a Fellow of The Explorer's Club, a member of the Society of Women Geographers, and she was chosen as a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year in 2013. In 2009, Shannon became the first person to mountain bike in Afghanistan. She continued to travel through Afghanistan by bike for several years and used the bike as a tool to explore gender barriers. Shannon supported and trained the first Afghan Women's National Cycling team and helped build and support the burgeoning 'right to ride' movement in Afghanistan, which expanded across multiple provinces with women's teams and clubs and the first women's races in the country's history. She is a producer of the Dari-language feature-length documentary film Afghan Cycles and is the subject of three short films about her work in Afghanistan.

The International Olympic Committee awarded Shannon an Honorary Achievement Diploma for promoting gender equity through sports.

Shannon is the author of two books, including her memoir Mountain to Mountain, published by St. Martins Press in 2014. Streets of Afghanistan was published by Hatherleigh Press in 2013, based upon the lifesized photo exhibition, Streets of Afghanistan, that she created and produced and then toured through Afghanistan’s public spaces in 2012. She has written for multiple magazine publications, including Outside, Patagonia, Blindfold, Sidetracked, and UN Chronicle.

She has spoken at the Italian Parliament, the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Harvard Club, The Explorer's Club, National Geographic Headquarters, multiple universities, and corporate conferences, including Chicago IDEAS, International Design Conference, Velo Cite, Edinburgh Festival of Cycling, and South Asian Youth Conference, among many others. She has given three TEDx talks. Her work has been covered by BBC, National Geographic, The New York Times, Pacific Standard, The Sunday Times, Bicycling, Outside Magazine, Huck Magazine, CNN, Dateline, and many more globally.

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