Esther Coopersmith is a long time political activist. Among her many public commitments to the United Nations system she has served as co-chair of Americans for UNESCO as well as a United States Public Delegate to the United Nations. An advisor to the Department of State for the Status of Women Commission of the United Nations and based in Washington D.C., she is an Advisory Board member of the Center for International development and Conflict Management. In 1982 she became the first woman since Eleanor Roosevelt to receive the United Nations Peace Prize.