Sylvia Earle, PhD

:: Sylvia A. Earle, Ph.D. - Science - 1976

SYLVIA A. EARLE is an oceanographer with a B.S. degree from Florida State Univ. (1955), M. S. and Ph D. degrees from Duke Univ. (1956, 1966) and honorary degrees from the Monterey Institute (1990), Ball State Univ. (1991), Washington College (1992), Duke Univ. (1993), Ripon College (1994), Univ. of Connecticut (1994), Univ. Rhode Is. (1996), Plymouth State College (1996), Simmons College (1997), Florida International University (1998) and St. Norbert's College (1998). She was Curator of Phycology at the California Academy of Sciences (1979 - 1986) and Research Assoc. at the Univ. of California, Berkeley (1969 - 1981), Radcliffe Inst. Scholar (1967-1969 ) and Research Fellow or Associate at Harvard Univ. (1967 - 1981). From 1980 to 1984 she served on the President's Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere (1980-84). In 1990 she was appointed as Chief Scientist of NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) where she served until 1992. In 1992, she founded Deep Ocean Exploration and Research, (D O E R), to design, operate, support, and consult on manned and robotic sub sea systems.

Recognized by the Library of Congress as a Living Legend, Dr. Earle is presently, Chairman of D O E R and the Explorer in Residence at the National

Geographic Society. In addition, she serves as the Executive Director of Conservation International's Marine Conservation Program, Chairman of the Advisory Committee for the Harte Institute Marine Advisory Board, Texas A&M; Corpus Christi, Chairman of the Science Committee for the National Park Service Advisory Board and Honorary President of the Explorers Club. She led the Sustainable Seas Expeditions, a five-year study of the National Marine Sanctuaries sponsored by National Geographic and funded by the Goldman Foundation. She is an adjunct scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), a Director of Kerr-McGee Inc., and serves on various boards, foundations and committees relating to marine research, policy and conservation. These include the World Resources Institute, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, World Environment Center, University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography, Duke University Marine Laboratory, Lindbergh Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, the Natural Resource Defense Council, United Nations Environmental Program and National Park Service.

She is a Fellow of the AAAS, the Marine Technology Society, the California Academy of Sciences, and the World Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Earle has led more than 50 expeditions worldwide involving in excess of 6500 hours underwater in connection with her research. She led the first team of women aquanauts during the Tektite Project in 1970 and holds a depth record for solo diving (1000 meters). Author of more than 100 publications concerning marine science and technology including the books, Sea Change (1995), Wild Ocean (1999), and Atlas of the Ocean (2001) she has participated in numerous television productions and given scientific, technical and general interest lectures in more than 60 countries. Books for children include Hello Fish, Sea Critters, Coral Reefs, and the award winning DIVE! Honors and awards include: The 2004 AAUS Scientific Diving Lifetime Achievement Award, 2004 International Banksia Environmental Award, 2003 Wyland Icon Award Lifetime Achievement Award, 2001 Robin W. Winks Award, 1999 Ding Darling Conservation Medal, 1999 Barbie Ambassador of Dreams, 1998 John M. Olguin Marine Environment Award, 1997 Bal de la Mer Foundation's Sea Keeper Award, 1997 Julius B. Stratton Leadership Award, 1997 Sea Space Environmental Awareness Award, 1997 Marine Technology Society Compass Award, 1997 Kilby Award, 1996 Explorers Club Medal, the 1996 Lindbergh Award, 1995 Boston Museum of Science Washburn Medal, the 1995 Massachusetts Audubon Society's Allen Morgan Prize, 1992 Director's Award of the Natural Resources Council; 1991 DEMA Hall of Fame Award; 1991 Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement; 1990 Radcliffe College Alumnae Association Medal; 1990 Society of Women Geographers Gold Medal; 1989 New England Aquarium David B. Stone Medal; 1981 Order of the Golden Ark by the Prince of the Netherlands; 1980 Explorers Club Lowell Thomas Award; 1970 Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year Award and a 1970 U. S. Department of Interior Conservation Service Award. In October 2000, she was inducted to the National Women's Hall of Fame.

She has been profiled for the National Geographic Explorer program (1987), Life Magazine (1987), The New Yorker (1989), the New York Times Magazine (1991), Parade Magazine (1991), Tomorrow Magazine (1991), Scientific American (1992), Current Biographies (1972 and 1992), ABC TV 20/20 (1992, 1995), the Charlie Rose Show (1993), The Lauren Hutton Show, CBS Sunday Morning (1995), TIME magazine, CNN (1998), USA Today (1999), People magazine (2000), & Vanity Fair (2002).

From the Academy of Achievement:

Sylvia Earle was born in Gibbstown, New Jersey. Her parents raised her on a small farm near Camden. From the time she was very small, Sylvia loved exploring the woods near her home. She was fascinated by the creatures and plants that lived in the wild. Neither of her parents had a college education, but they too loved nature, and they taught young Sylvia to respect wild creatures and not to be afraid of the unknown. Those who have followed her adult career may wonder if she is afraid of anything.

When Sylvia was 13, the family moved to Clearwater, Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico. Soon, Sylvia was learning all she could about the wildlife of the Gulf and its coast. Her parents could not afford to send her to college themselves, but she was an exceptional student and won scholarships to the Florida State. Throughout her school years, she supported herself by working in college laboratories.

Here, she first learned scuba diving, determined to use this new technology to study marine life at first hand. Fascinated by all aspects of the ocean and marine life, Sylvia decided to specialize in botany. Understanding the vegetation, she believes, is the first step to understanding any ecosystem.

After earning her Master's at Duke University, Sylvia Earle took time off to marry and start a family but remained active in marine exploration. In 1964, when her children were only two and four, she left home for six weeks to join a National Science Foundation expedition in the Indian Ocean. Throughout the mid-1960s, she struggled to balance the demands of her family with scientific expeditions that took her all over the world.

In 1966 Sylvia Earle received her Ph.D. from Duke. Her dissertation "Phaeophyta of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico" created a sensation in the oceanographic community. Never before had a marine scientist made such a long and detailed first-hand study of aquatic plant life. Since then she has made a lifelong project of cataloguing every species of plant that can be found in the Gulf of Mexico.

Dr. Earle's burgeoning career took her first to Harvard, as a research fellow, then to the resident directorship of the Cape Haze Marine Laboratory, in Florida. In 1968, Dr. Earle traveled to a hundred feet below the waters of the Bahamas in the submersible Deep Diver. She was four months pregnant at the time.

In 1969 she applied to participate in the Tektite project. This venture, sponsored jointly by the U.S. Navy, the Department of the Interior and NASA allowed teams of scientist to live for weeks at a time in an enclosed habitat on the ocean floor fifty feet below the surface, off the Virgin Islands. By this time, Sylvia had spent more than a thousand research hours underwater, more than any other scientists who applied to the program, but, as she says, "the people in charge just couldn't cope with the idea of men and women living together underwater."

The result was Tektite II, Mission 6, an all-female research expedition led by Dr. Earle herself. In 1970, Sylvia Earle and four other women dove 50 feet below the surface to the small structure they would call home for the next two weeks.

The publicity surrounding this adventure made Sylvia Earle a recognizable face beyond the scientific community. To their surprise, the scientists found they had become celebrities and were given a ticker-tape parade and a White House reception. After that Sylvia Earle was increasingly in demand as public speaker, and she became an outspoken advocate of undersea research. At the same time, she began to write for National Geographic and to produce books and films. Besides trying to arouse greater public interest in the sea, she hoped to raise public awareness of the damage being done to our aquasphere by pollution and environmental degradation.

In the 1970s, scientific missions took Sylvia Earle to the Galapagos, to the water off Panama, to China and the Bahamas and, again, to the Indian Ocean. During this period she began a productive collaboration with undersea photographer Al Giddings. Together, they investigated the battleship graveyard in the Caroline Islands of the South Pacific.

In 1977 they made their first voyage following the great sperm whales. In a series of expeditions they followed the whales from Hawaii to New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Bermuda and Alaska. Their journeys were recorded in the documentary film Gentle Giants of the Pacific (1980).

In 1979, Sylvia Earle walked untethered on the sea floor at a lower depth than any living human being before or since. In the so-called Jim suit, a pressurized one-atmosphere garment, she was carried by a submersible down to the depth of 1,250 feet below the ocean's surface off of the island of Oahu. At the bottom, she detached from the vessel and explored the depths for two and a half hours with only a communication line connecting her to the submersible, and nothing at all connecting her to the world above. She described this adventure in her 1980 book: Exploring the Deep Frontier.

In the 1980s, along with engineer Graham Hawkes, she started the companies Deep Ocean Engineering and Deep Ocean Technologies. These ventures design and build undersea vehicles like Deep Rover and Deep Flight which are making it possible for scientists to maneuver at depths that defied all previously existing technology. In the middle of this life of adventure, Sylvia Earle has been married and raised three children, some of whom have worked side by side with her at Deep Ocean Engineering

In the early 1990s, Dr. Earle took a leave of absence from her companies to serve as Chief Scientist of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. There, among other duties, Sylvia Earle was responsible for monitoring the health of the nation's waters. In this capacity she also reported on the environmental damage wrought by Iraq's burning of the Kuwaiti oil fields.

Today she is explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society. Wherever future journeys take her, we can be certain that Sylvia Earle will be in the forefront of deep ocean exploration.

From National Geographic:

Sylvia Earle, called "Her Deepness" by the New Yorker and the New York Times, "Living Legend" by the Library of Congress, and the first "Hero for the Planet," is an oceanographer, explorer, author, and lecturer with experience as a field research scientist. She also is executive director for corporate and nonprofit organizations, including the Aspen Institute, the Conservation Fund, American Rivers, Mote Marine Laboratory, Duke University Marine Laboratory, Rutgers Institute for Marine Science, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, and Ocean Conservancy.

Former chief scientist of NOAA, Earle is president of Deep Search International and chair of the Advisory Council for the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies. She has a B.S. from Florida State University, an M.S. and a Ph.D. from Duke University, and 15 honorary degrees. She has authored more than 150 scientific, technical, and popular publications, lectured in more than 60 countries, and appeared in hundreds of television productions.

Earle has led more than 60 expeditions and logged more than 6,000 hours underwater, including leading the first team of women aquanauts during the Tektite Project in 1970 and setting a record for solo diving to a depth of 1,000 meters (3,300 feet). Her research concerns marine ecosystems with special reference to exploration and the development and use of new technologies for access and effective operations in the deep sea and other remote environments.

Honors include the Netherlands Order of the Golden Ark, inclusion in the National Women's Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Achievement, and medals from the Explorers Club, the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, the Lindbergh Foundation, the National Wildlife Federation, Sigma Xi, Barnard College, the New England Aquarium, the Seattle Aquarium, the Society of Women Geographers, and the National Parks Conservation Association.