To wrap up this week focusing on our oceans and coasts, we touch on another women that was an important person in the world of marine biology, and oceanography.
After receiving her Ph.D. from Duke University in Phycology in 1966, Sylvia Earle worked as a resident director of the Cape Haze Marine Laboratory. Three years later, she applied to work on the Tektite Project, an installation allowing scientist to live underwater for weeks at a time. She was at first rejected, but joined after applying a second time as a leader of an all female team of aquanauts. In 1979 she did a 2 and a half hour untethered deep sea dive to explore the ocean floor, setting a women’s depth record of 1,250ft by doing so.
In 1982 Earle and her second husband Graham Hawkes founded Deep Sea Engineering to design and build underwater vehicles to help scientists work even deeper underwater. 1985 they built the Deep Sea Rover, capable of diving as low as 3,300 ft. Just one year later, the Deep Rover was tested and ready for training, which Earle and her team conducted off the coast of the Bahamas. However, in 1990 Earle left Deep Sea Engineering to start working as the Chief Scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, becoming the first woman to do so.
Sylvia Earle has gone on to have various impressive and impactful accomplishments over her long career for ocean advocacy. Among others, she became the National Geographic Society’s first female explorer as their Explorer-in-Residence, earning her the nickname “Her Deepness”. She also Founded Mission Blue, to inspire support, exploration and conservation through establishing marine protected areas, or “Hope Spots” around the world. In 2020, Aurora Expeditions named their second ship “The Sylvia Earle” in her honor.
She continues to fight for the protection of our oceans as President and Chairman of Mission Blue, working to inspire others with her messages of saving and protecting the sea.
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