Women’s History Month: Dr. Sylvia Earle
March is Women’s History Month–a time to remember and reflect on the many contributions and achievements of women and girls. This week btw takes a closer look at Dr. Sylvia Earle. Nicknamed “Her Deepness,” Earle is a groundbreaking scientist, deep-sea explorer, and activist who is still working and “making waves” today.
A Remarkable Student
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to walk on the ocean floor? Among her other accomplishments, Dr. Earle holds the record for the deepest ocean-floor walk in history. But she started out just like any other curious child. Earle was born on August 30, 1935, in Gibbstown, New Jersey. She grew up on a small farm, where her love of marine life was born. She would spend hours observing the fish and tadpoles in her backyard pond. She also loved to explore the nearby fields, woods, and salt marshes. When she was fifteen, the family moved to Dunedin, Florida, located on the Gulf of Mexico. There, she became fascinated by the Gulf Coast wildlife.
Neither of Earle’s parents went to college. Nevertheless, she was an excellent student. Earle graduated high school at sixteen, earned a scholarship to Florida State University, and graduated college at nineteen. By the age of 20, she had a master’s degree in botany from Duke University. At Duke, she studied algae. She learned to be a SCUBA diver so that she could collect over 20,000 algae samples for her PhD research. The discoveries she made are still used by modern botanists.
A Science Celebrity
Earle took a break from her studies to marry and have children. But she never stopped her science studies entirely. In 1964, while still working to finish her PhD, she began doing something very unusual for women at the time. Earle joined research voyages to the Galapagos Islands, Panama Canal, and the coast of Chile. The following year, she accepted a job as resident director of the Cape Haze Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida. After Earle earned her PhD in 1966, she divorced, remarried, and became a research scholar at Harvard.
In 1968, Earle once again defied expectations. At four months pregnant with her third child, she joined the Smithsonian Institution’s Man-in-Sea project, an experimental underwater habitat 100 feet below the ocean’s surface. She was the first woman to ever attempt something like that. In 1970, she tried to participate in a U.S. Navy program that enabled scientists to live and work for weeks in an underwater habitat. The Navy wouldn’t let her participate because she was a woman. So, Earle led a team of all-female scientists on a two-week trip to the habitat. That trip made the scientists celebrities; once they surfaced, they were honored with a trip to the White House and a parade in Chicago.
Becoming “Her Deepness”
But Earle didn’t stop there. In 1970 she moved with her family to Los Angeles and began teaching at UCLA. She wrote for National Geographic and other publications, gave talks, and continued to go on marine expeditions all around the world. In 1980 she wrote a book, Exploring the Deep Frontier, which described her experiences of walking on the ocean floor deeper than anyone ever had before (or has since). At 1,250 feet deep, she untethered from the submarine and walked the ocean floor alone for two and a half hours, wearing a pressurized suit. For this, she earned the nickname “Her Deepness.”
Earle also became the first female Chief Scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA); publishing more than 200 publications, lecturing in more than 80 countries, leading more than 100 marine expeditions, and becoming National Geographic’s first female explorer in residence. She has received more than 27 honorary degrees, Time magazine’s first Hero of the Planet, the United Nations Champion of the Earth, and the 2009 TED Prize. She currently serves as president and Chair of the Mission Blue/Sylvia Earle Alliance. This group is dedicated to protecting the Earth’s ecosystems from the effects of climate change.