Oceanographer, Diver, and Algae researcher
in the JIM suit, 1976
Known by many as “Her Deepness”, Dr. Sylvia Earle is still championing the oceans at 89. Her list of accomplishments is long. Among them she holds the record for the deepest untethered dive in a JIM suit (one of the early, successful versions of an Atmospheric Diving Suit) at 381 meters / 1250 feet. She was the first woman to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as its Chief Scientist. And her 1966 doctoral thesis on marine algae became a lifetime passion which amassed a treasure trove of data that now lives at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and includes over 20,000 specimens that serves as a resource for scholars looking at the past and future of seaweed and algae, which in turn gives us a look at the on going health of the oceans.
Dr. Earle was born in 1935 and grew up in New Jersey and Florida exploring ponds and the ocean shoreline and keeping a notebook filled with observations about the marine life she saw. At 19 she became a certified SCUBA diver when the gear was still early development. A year later she got her master’s degree in botany and would use her SCUBA skills to study aquatic plants in the ocean, rather than as samples dredged up in poor condition. In 1970Dr. Earle led an all women team of researchers on a two week stay in the Tektite II Project underwater habitat to study living full time underwater and studying the marine ecology around the habitat. In addition to a multitude of dives at varying depths, in oceans around the world, Dr. Earle co-designed and built underwater vehicles that could be used by scientists to do research greater depths. She received Time magazine’s first Hero for the Planet award in 1988 and the 2009 TED Prize. She is also the founder and President of the ocean advocacy group Mission Blue which aids to build a “global network of Marine Protected Areas”.
Exploring the Ocean for Sixty Years | Best Job Ever: Video
Books by Dr. Sylvia Earle at Abe Books