Sylvia Earle: Marine Biologist and Aquanaut

A few days ago the KQED public television program QUEST profiled pioneering marine biologist and explorer Sylvia Earle, which has given me the kick in the rear I needed to finish this post that's been sitting as a draft for several months.

In 1970 Sylvia Earle lead an all-female team of "Aquanauts" that lived for two weeks in an underwater habitat - Tektite II - off the Virgin Islands. The project was partially funded by NASA, which was interested in how teams would work in an isolated closed environment. Others on her team were Renata True of Tulane (now at College of the Mainland in Texas), Scripps graduate students Ann Hartline and Alina Szmant (now at University of North Carolina, Wilmington), and engineer Margaret Ann Lucas.

Their mission wasn't just focused on learning to work together as a team and studying the local flora and fauna. They were also testing newly developed diving equipment. Astronaut Scott Carpenter noted that when he visited Tektite II and wrote about it for Popular Science:

Their professional skill impressed me, and so did their self-reliance. With no male help wanted, they toted their own tanks and other heavy gear. [...] On a swim the day before, I saw the team prepare equipment for another ecology study by Ann Hartline and Alina Szmant. Peggy Lucas, the team's engineer, went along on another occasion, when all five girls were in the water at once.

That was a rare and somewhat eerie sight. Five girls clad in bright-orange wetsuits, with stark white backpacks, working on their projects in brilliant blue-green water, [...] a splash of color I'll remember [...]. An unusual part of the spectacle was the absence of bubbles.

The team was building up experience with closed-circuit, mixed-scuba - an innovation that their Tektite II mission would be the first to put to use. Instead of exhausting a diver's exhaled breath to the sea, as an open-circuit scuba does, it absorbs carbon dioxide and recovers unused oxygen, to supplement the mixture entering the inhalation bag from the tanks.

If you can overlook the patronizing tone (I hate when adult women are called "girls"), it's an interesting look at the development of new technology.

When they emerged from their habitat they were instant celebrities, and were treated to a ticker-tape parade in Chicago and invited to lunch at the Whitehouse. Not surprisingly the press focused on the novelty of women scientists. For example this Associated Press article published in the Spokane Daily Chronicle gives us the important details about the Aquanauts' average height, weight and preferred hair styles (petite with pony tails, if you must know). However, it also included this great quote:

"Sometimes people find it hard to take us seriously," says Dr. Sylvia Early[sic] Mead, 34, of Los Angeles, the team leader. But she adds, "Most of the problems are in the minds of the men."

Since 1970 Earle has never let up on her exploration of the oceans - she set several diving records, walked on the ocean floor 1250 feet below the surface, and became the first female chief scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. She has also lead the Sustainable Sea Expeditions, a project to research and promote the US National Marine Sanctuaries, and her work as an advocate for oceans and its denizens Time magazine named her a "hero for the planet".

She acknowledges that her devotion to her work may have strained her first marriage. However, she was able to figure out how to combine career and family, despite her frequent field trips:

It is a problem trying to combine having family and being as enthusiastic about a specialty as I have always been. I have managed it in part through ingenious rearranging of a life, I suppose. Having a laboratory set up at home. I always had a microscope -- not a big, fancy, sophisticated microscope, but something that would make it possible for me to work at home. And I have a professional library that I have accumulated all my life. The big professional libraries do provide the necessary access to a world of information, but I have managed to gather a nucleus of books at home that are like an extension of my mind. My favorite wall paper is books. I can't possibly keep everything in my brain, but if I have access to it, and know where to get it off the shelf, that's like having an extension -- a bigger brain. That's certainly true with computers now.

Earle's husband and parents helped take care of the kids while she was traveling, and her they were also occasionally taken out of school to "dive with the whales in Hawaii" or travel "to the Bahamas and dive with a friendly dolphin" (how cool is that?). Earle's children learned to love the oceans too:

Ms. Earle said her son works for California Fish and Game, catching the “bad guys who take more abalone than they should.” Her older daughter, whom she described as hating math since the 6th grade because of a discouraging teacher, now runs the company Ms. Earle started, Deep Ocean Engineering. And her younger daughter now does deep sea diving in submarines.

Watch the QUEST segment on Sylvia Earle either below or at KQED.com.

QUEST on KQED Public Media.

More about Sylvia Earle:

• Sylvia Earle's TED Prize wish to protect our oceans (video) - watch this!
  
• Read "Queen of the Deep" by Dawn Stover, Popular Science, April 1995
• Read "Call of the Sea" by Roger Rosenblatt, Time, 5 Oct 1998
• Academy of Achievement: Sylvia Earle Profile (with an extensive interview)
  
• Sylvia Earle: National Geographic Explorer in Residence
• American Physical Society series on Women Life Scientists for K-12 students: Sylvia Earle (pdf)
  
• Read the QUEST producer's enthusiastic notes on Profile: Sylvia Earle.
• The Deep Search Foundation Blog
  

Image: "During the National Geographic/Sea Stories filming, Dr. Earle explains to Emma, the uses and benefits of deploying the DeepWorkers in the Sanctuary system." (from sanctuaries.noaa.gov)
Tags: Sylvia Earle, marine biology, oceanography

Diversity in Science Carnival #1

The first Diversity in Science Carnival is up at Urban Science Adventures. There are a lot of excellent posts collected there, but I wanted to specifically point to several posts about women scientists:

• Canadian Girl Postdoc in America writes about mathematician Katherine Okikolu
• Oceanographer Ashanti Pyrtle was the profiled by ScienceWoman and given a shoutout by Miriam at The Oyster's Garter
• Zuska writes about physiologist and academic leader Pamela Gunter-Smith
  
• DrugMonkey wrote about Drug Abuse Researchers Yasmin L. Hurd and Chana K. Akins
  
• Dr. Joycelyn Simpson and Dr. Patricia Bath are on Brett Trout's list of the Top 10 African American Inventors.
  

And I'm especially looking forward to the next edition:

Join us late March/early April as Diversity in Science and Scientiae celebrate Women’s History Month and salute woman achievers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Technology.

Tags: Diversity in Science

Women Scientists in LIFE

Google has just added images from the LIFE photo archive - both published and unpublished - to its image search, and there are some great photos of women scientists.

Some of my favorites (click on the photo to see a larger version and related images):

"Biologist/author Rachel Carson sitting at microscope as she prepares to examine tissue on a petrie dish at her home." Taken September 24, 1962 by Alfred Eisenstaedt. Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was a marine biologist and writer, who is probably best known for her book Silent Spring, which revealed the detrimental effects of the widespread use of pesticides and weed killers on the environment.

"Mathematics senior Judith Gorenstein working at blackboard at MIT." Taken February 11, 1956 by Gjon Mili. Judith Gorenstein Ronat was the president of the math club when this photo was taken. She is currently a psychiatrist in Israel. You can read more about her in this Technology Review article about the 50th anniversary of the Life photo shoot.

"Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu, Professor of Physics at Columbia Univ". Taken in 1952 by Gjon Mili. Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997) emigrated from China to the US in 1936, received her doctorate from UC Berkeley in 1940 and contributed to the Manhattan Project by developing a process to produce bomb-grade uranium. She was the first woman instructor in the Princeton University physics department, and was a member of the Columbia physics faculty from 1944 to 1980. According to Wikipedia, her work contributed to the development of parity laws by Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Ynag, but she did not share their Nobel Prize, "a fact widely blamed on sexism by the selection committee."

"TIME INTERNATIONAL cover 01-19-2004 featuring Italian astronomer Sandra Savaglio re migration of Europe's top intelligencia to the US" Astrophysicist Sandra Savaglio is currently on the faculty of the Physics & Astronomy Department of Johns Hopkins University.

"Chemist Marie Curie (1867-1934) in her laboratory." Taken in 1911. I don't think Marie Curie needs an introduction. This photo was presumably taken at the time she won her second Nobel Prize, "in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element."

"Scientist, Marie P. Fish, discussing sound producing sea creatures at annual meeting of A.A.A.S., at University of California." Taken in December 1954 by Nat Farbman. Marie Poland Fish (1901-1989) was an oceanographer and marine biologist who studied underwater sound detection. Her research helped the US Navy devise methods for distingushing the sonar signals from schools of fish from the signals generated by submarines. Read her obituary in the NY Times.

"Scientist looking over ampules of vaccine at the Pasteur Institute." Taken in 1938. The woman in this photo isn't identified. 1938 marked the 50th anniversary of the Institut Pasteur in Paris.

Tags: women in science, Life Magazine, portraits

Sally Ride, Climate Change and Science Education

On July 23 Dr. Sally Ride gave the keynote address at the "Earth Then, Earth Now: Our Changing Climate" conference for educators at the NOAA Science Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. The conference is part of the 25th anniversary celebration of Ride's first spaceflight.

Watch video from the conference. I particularly recommend the Q&A about climate change and science education with Ride and Dr. Kathy Sullivan, oceanographer and first American woman to walk in space (watch wmv).

While Ride was in Maryland, Ride spoke to a group of middle-school girls.

"I had parents who encouraged me to do whatever I wanted," Ride told a group of middle-schools girls at the Maryland Science Center last week.

"And I had two teachers - women science teachers - who told me that if you are good at science in seventh grade, you will be good at science in high school and you will be good at science in college.

"They told me, 'You don't get dumber as you get older.' They helped me have confidence."

And Ride is trying to pass on that confidence to middle school students: Sally Ride Science runs science festivals across the US, featuring hands-on activities for 5th-8th graders.

Tags: Sally Ride, Kathy Sullivan, climate change, science education

Late spring cleaning: Interviews and Profiles of Woman Scientists

Here are a few interviews and biographies of women and science I've collected over the past month or so:

Aminollah Sabzevari writes about the pioneering Women in Medical Physics for the Science Creative Quarterly, including Marie Curie, Harriet Brooks, and Rosalind Franklin.

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Inkling magazine interviews Margaret Wertheim, physicist by training, science communicator by training. She is the writer and host of the PBS series Faith and Reason (see also her commentary "Numbers are Male, Said Pythagoras, and the Idea Persists" ) and, in her spare time, has crocheted a coral reef that is exhibited as part of the " 6 BILLION PERPS HELD HOSTAGE! Artists Address Global Warming" exhibit at the Warhol museum in Pittsburgh.

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Inkling magazine also has an interview with geophysicist Marcia McNutt, currently president of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). She talks about her research, her background and women in oceanography:

Have you ever felt that you were being treated differently than if you were a man in the same role?
I guess very early on when I was a graduate student I probably noticed that there were awkward moments. Especially when I’d go out on research vessels when women rarely did. But I’ve been in oceanography for so long now that many of the people at other institutions were students or shipmates with me. I don’t think they even think of me in a gender role anymore. It’s just a zero issue now. Young women starting out in oceanography don’t face any of the issues that I did. Students in many of the sciences are at least 50 percent female today. But there’s attrition going up the ranks. By the time you get to institute director there are very few women.

Read the whole interview for more.

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ScienceBlogs official blog Page 3.14 has an interview with science blogger Sandra Porter of Discovering Biology in a Digital World.

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Zuska notes the induction of engineer Eleanor Baum to the National Women's Hall of Fame and her nominator, past president of the Society for Women Engineers, Jill Tietjen.

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John Noble Wilford profiled Jane Goodall and current research on chimpanzees in the New York Times in "Chimpanzees: Almost Human, Sometimes Smarter" (registration required)

Jane Goodall, a young English woman working in Africa in the 1960s, began changing perceptions. At first, experts disputed her reports of chimps’ using tools and social behavior. The experts especially objected to her references to chimp culture. Just humans, they insisted, had “culture.”

“Jane suffered early rejection by the establishment,” Richard Wrangham, a Harvard anthropologist, said. “Now, the people who say chimpanzees don’t have emotions and culture are the ones rejected.”

Also check out his sidebar on Goodall, "With a Founding Mother in the Filed of Primatology" (TimesSelect subscription only).

Manasee Wagh writes about "Beatrix Potter, scientist" for The Scientist. (via easternblot)

What is impressive about her work is that despite Miss Potter's lack of scientific training, she was one of very few Victorians engaged in experimental observations on fungi," says Nicholas Money, professor of botany at Miami University.

"She was an exceptional botanist when women weren't allowed to be," says Linda Lear, author of Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature, published in January this year. "And she had the pluck to stick to her theories, even when the professionals dismissed her."

Tags: Marie Curie, Harriet Brooks, Rosalind Franklin, Margaret Wertheim, Marcia McNutt, Eleanor Baum, Jill Tietjen, Beatrix Potter, Jane Goodall

Rocket Scientists

Women have made many contributions to the exploration of space. Both the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA share profiles of women who have worked for those organizations as scientists and administrators.

Profiles of Women at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory starts by pointing out:

Say "rocket scientist" and you probably think of a man in a white lab coat. Say "JPL" to some people, and the image of the man in the white lab coat remains. Actually, JPL isn't populated entirely by men, nor is it thick with rocket scientists. We're a population of women and men of all colors, ages, backgrounds and professions. We are all part of JPL's mission to explore and to discover.

The site is plain vanilla, but that doesn't make the profiles any less interesting.

Women of NASA includes profiles of of women who work in many different fields - computer scientists, engineers, biologists, geologists, physicists, and, of course astronauts. The site is sleek, with lots of information for teachers, students, and the general public interested in science.

Photo: Aprille Joy Ericsson, Ph.D., aerospace engineer at Goddard Space Flight Center.

Annoyingly, NASA felt the need to "girlify" the site with a predominantly pink theme (looking at sites aimed towards women and girls makes me oh-so-very-tired of the color pink). I guess I should be thankful they decided against sparkles and flowers.

Tags: women in science, NASA, JPL