"Her Deepness"

Sylvia Earle was born August 30, 1935 in Gibbstown, New Jersey. When she was young Earle moved to Western Coast in Florida where she had developed attachment for the ocean. When she had grown up Sylivia went to three different colleges  in 1952 St. Petersburg Jr. College, in 1955 Florida State University, and during 1956 Duke University.  She had gotten several degrees such as associate degree, bachelor of science, master of science, and phycology.

Today she is known as a marine biologist, explorer, author, and lecturer. She has been apart of National Geographic since 1998. Earle was the first female chief scientist in the U.S  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and was named by Time Magazine as its fist Hero of the Planet. She is also apart of a group called Ocean Elders, the group concerns are toward the protection of the ocean and marine biology.  

During 2009, Sylvia Earle won the Ted Prize. With the Ted’s support, she had launched Mission Blue. Which aims to establish marine protected areas (entitled ‘Hope Spots’) around the globe. With Mission Blue and there associates, legendary Dr. Sylivia Earle led the expedition Hope Spot around the globe. Past expeditions include Cuba in 2009, Belize throughout 2010, the Galapagos Islands during April 2010, Cost Rica and Central American Dome during early 2014, and South Africa in the course of late 2014. Today Dr. Earle and her team have officially 94 Hope Spots.

During August 2014, a Netflix exclusive documentary titled ‘Mission Blue’ was released. It focusses on Earle’s life and career as well as her Mission Blue campaign to create a global network of marine protected areas.

Mission Blue–shot during a 3 year period in numerous locations around the world
the film traces Sylvia’s remarkable personal journey, from her earliest memories exploring the ocean as a young girl to her days leading a daring undersea mission in the Virgin Islands and beyond. The film deftly weaves her unique personal history with the passion that consumes Sylvia today: creating a global parks system for the ocean that she calls “Hope Spots”. As she eloquently expressed in her TED prize wish, Sylvia passionately believes that this ambitious plan is the best way to restore the health of the ocean. But as she travels to the Gulf of Mexico, the Galapagos Islands, the Coral Sea, and
beyond, it becomes clear just how daunting the challenges we face truly are.
The film is part oceanic road trip; part biography; part action adventure story. Guiding
us through the film is Fisher Stevens, whose own lifelong love for the ocean inspired him
to produce the Academy award-winning film, The Cove. In many ways, Mission Blue is
an extension of that earlier film. But rather than explore a single issue as The Cove did when it turned its lens on dolphin slaughters in Japan. Mission Blue tackles the daunting challenge of how to protect the global ocean that is now under attack as never before. As a witness to change over the past 60 years, Sylvia is a steadfast warrior, leading the charge to restore the ocean to health before it’s too late. Ambitious in its visual language, goals and passion for change, Mission Blue is a wake up call for everyone who has ever cared about or experienced the Ocean as well as for those far inland who are dependent
on rainwater, clean air and weather cycles regulated by the ocean. As Sylvia says: “No blue; no green. No ocean; no us.”  

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. The first woman to lead the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Earle advocates for ocean conservation and education.   

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. This was all on top of completing her coursework and writing her dissertation.  

Earle received her Ph.D. in botany in 1966. 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.  

Earle continued to go on expeditions around the world. Earle and Taylor divorced and soon Earle met Dr. Giles W. 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. 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. She was four months pregnant at the time – her third child, a daughter, was born that July.  

In 1969, Earle applied to the Tektite II Project, an initiative sponsored by the U.S. Navy, the Department of the Interior, and NASA near the U.S. Virgin Islands. Like the Man-in-Sea project, it enabled scientists to live and work in a habitat 50 feet underwater. Earle and several other female scientists were eminently qualified (no one had as much diving experience as Earle), but government officials did not want men and women living together in the habitat. So, in 1970, Earle led an all-female team to the habitat where, for two weeks, they observed and photographed the marine life in the surrounding waters. When she and her team returned to the surface, they were celebrities. They were honored at the White House and received a parade in Chicago. Now in the spotlight, Earle became determined to share her passion for marine life with broad audiences and help the public understand the beauty and value of the oceans. 

Earle, Mead, and their combined six children moved to Los Angeles in 1970 and Earle began teaching at UCLA. She gave talks around the country describing her underwater explorations and wrote for publications like National Geographic. She also continued to go on marine expeditions around the world, often serving as their chief scientist.  

Earle began collaborating with undersea photographer Al Giddings. They explored a battleship graveyard in the South Pacific and followed great sperm whales in a series of expeditions featured in the documentary film Gentle Giants of the Pacific (1980). She worked with Giddings on her 1980 book, Exploring the Deep Frontier, which told of her experience walking untethered on the sea floor at a lower depth than any person before or since. She wore a pressurized suit and was carried to a depth of 1,250 feet, where she detached from the submersible and explored the sea floor for two and a half hours. 

In the 1980s, Earle teamed up with engineer Graham Hawkes (her third husband, after her divorce from Mead) and started two companies to design and build underwater vehicles that helped scientists work at unprecedented depths.  

In 1990, Earle was appointed the Chief Scientist of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the first woman to hold the position. As head NOAA scientist, Earle was responsible for safeguarding the health of the nation’s waters. In 1992, she returned to her work in deep ocean engineering, exploration, and education. In 1995, she published Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans, a call to action to preserve the Earth’s oceans.  

Throughout her career, Earle has authored more than 200 publications, lectured in more than 80 countries, and led more than 100 marine expeditions (totaling over 7,000 hours under water). She has received 27 honorary degrees and more than 100 honors from around the world. Some of the most notable awards include Time magazine’s first Hero for the Planet (1998), the United Nations Champion of the Earth (2014), and the 2009 TED Prize.  

Earle is the president and Chairman of the Mission Blue/Sylvia Earle Alliance, an ocean advocacy group. Their most recent effort is to develop a global network of “Hope Spots,” dedicated to protecting the biodiversity on which Earth’s interconnected ecosystems depend, particularly in light of the accelerating threat of climate change.