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Sylvia A. Earle

Sylvia A. Earle is the former Chief Scientist of US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, as well as the founder of Sylvia Earle Alliance, Mission Blue, and Deep Ocean Exploration and Research. Dr. Earle has been called “Her Deepness” by the New Yorker and the New York Times and named a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress and the first “Hero for the Planet” by Time magazine. She has lectured in more than eighty countries, led more than a hundred expeditions—including the first team of women aquanauts—and logged nearly 7,000 hours underwater with a record solo dive to 1,000 meters and nine saturation dives.

Author

Grunts, as seen from Aquarius Undersea Laboratory, near Key Largo, Florida, 2006.

The Sweet Spot in Time

Fall 2012 | Essays

This month Glamour magazine named scientist and aquanaut Sylvia Earle a Woman of the Year for her lifetime of work advocating for the ocean. Her essay on breaking gender barriers as an ocean explorer appeared in our Fall 2012 magazine. "I took pleasure in turning questions such as 'Did you wear lipstick? Did you use a hair­dryer?' into a discourse on the importance of the ocean as our primary source of oxygen," she writes, "the value of coral reefs, mangroves, and marshes as vital buffers against storms, and the delightful nature of fish, shrimp, lobsters, and crabs alive, swimming in the ocean."