Navy, the Department of the Interior, and NASA near the U.S. In 1969, Earle applied to the Tektite II Project, an initiative sponsored by the U.S. She was four months pregnant at the time – her third child, a daughter, was born that July. Earle descended 100 feet below the surface in a submersible vehicle and entered the habitat, the first woman scientist to do so in that manner. Mead, the curator of fishes at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. Earle and Mead married in 1966 and Earle was appointed as a research scholar at Harvard. In February 1968, Earle joined a group of scientists in the Bahamas as part of the Smithsonian Institution’s Man-in-Sea project, an experimental underwater habitat. For her dissertation, Earle collected more than 20,000 samples of algae to catalog aquatic plants in the Gulf of Mexico. Her project was a marvel in the discipline, as she was one of the first scientists to use SCUBA to document marine life firsthand, and it remained a landmark study for decades.Įarle continued to go on expeditions around the world. Earle and Taylor divorced and soon Earle met Dr. Giles W. This was all on top of completing her coursework and writing her dissertation.Įarle received her Ph.D. In 1964, Earle was invited on a six-week voyage to the Indian Ocean on a National Science Foundation research vessel. It was a demanding job that was not often offered to women at the time, but Earle was used to being the only woman in a scientific setting and made the most of the opportunity. From 1964 to 1966, Earle joined voyages to the Galápagos Islands, the Chilean cost, and the Panama Canal Zone. In 1965, she was named resident director of the Cape Haze Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida. She earned a scholarship to Florida State University, where she studied botany and graduated at 19. She also became certified as a SCUBA diver at this time, in order to study ocean plant life firsthand. By 20, Earle earned a master’s degree in botany from Duke University.Įarle then began her doctoral work at Duke, focusing on algae, which produce most of the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere through photosynthesis. There, Earle met John Taylor, a graduate student in zoology. Earle suspended her studies when the two married. She gave birth to a daughter and son and soon resumed her doctoral studies. An excellent student, Earle graduated high school at 16. Neither of Earle’s parents attended college, but they instilled a love of nature in their daughter at an early age. She recalled spending hours by the pond in her backyard, filling jars with fish and tadpoles, recording her observations in notebooks. Her family moved to Dunedin, Florida (located near Clearwater on the Gulf of Mexico) when Earle was 13 and her interest turned to Gulf Coast wildlife. Sylvia Earle was born on August 30, 1935 in Gibbstown, New Jersey and lived on a small farm near Camden with her parents and two brothers. The first woman to lead the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Earle advocates for ocean conservation and education. Referred to as “Her Deepness,” National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Sylvia Earle holds the record for deepest walk on the sea floor and is a world-renowned expert on marine biology.
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