Biography
On August 30th 1935, Sylvia Earle was born in Gibsontown in New Jersey. Sylvia grew up on a small farm near Camden. Since she can remember, she ventured off into the wilderness and loved to explore living things. Although both of her parents did not have college degrees, they taught her many important lessons. One lesson that they taught her was that she should respect living creatures and that she should not be afraid of them.
When Sylvia was just 13, her and her family moved to Clearwater, Florida on the Gulf of Mexico. Sylvia became quickly enthralled in learning about aquatic life in the gulf. Her parents could not afford to send her to college, but she got many scholarships. She worked in many college laboratories and that is where she first went scuba diving to try to study more aquatic life. She decided to study botany because she believed that studying plants in an ecosystem was very important. After she earned her master's degree, Sylvia took some time off to marry Graham Hawkes and had three children by him. In 1964, she left home for 6 weeks to go to a national science expedition in the Indian Ocean. In 1966, Sylvia graduated with her PHD and made a life long project to catalog every species of plant that can be found in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1968, Earle travelled one hundred feet below the ocean in the Bahamas. In 1969, she applied to participate in the tektite project which allowed teams of scientists to live for a few weeks in an enclosed space on the ocean floor fifty feet below the water's surface. At the time, Sylvia had spent over one thousand hours underneath the water doing research.
The project soon became very public and in no time, Sylvia Earle became a very recognizable face to many. Earle quickly became a public speaker and a major advocate for underwater research. Around the same time, Sylvia started to write for National Geographic and soon her books and films were published. With all of her research, she realized that there was a lot of damage in the oceans due to pollution and environmental degradation. She became very passionate about this issue and tried to raise lots of public awareness. In 1979, Sylvia walked on the seafloor at the lowest depth any living human had been before. At 1,250 feet below the surface, of the Hawaiian islands, she explored the depths of the ocean with nothing but a communication line connecting her to the world that lay above her. In the 1980s, her and her husband Graham Hawkes started many companies such as Deep Ocean Engineering and Deep Ocean Technologies. These companies were created to design and build undersea vehicles to help scientists move around at very deep depths that previous technology could not function at. In the 1990s, Earle took a break from her companies to work at the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration. She monitored the health of the ocean waters and tried to raise awareness about pollution.
Today, Sylvia works at National Geographic and works for advisory councils for information of the world's oceans. She received the TED prize award for her idea to a global network of marine protected preserves. She continues to raise awareness of the oceans health and tries to prevent pollution. She has been a very influential person in saving our oceans.
On August 30th 1935, Sylvia Earle was born in Gibsontown in New Jersey. Sylvia grew up on a small farm near Camden. Since she can remember, she ventured off into the wilderness and loved to explore living things. Although both of her parents did not have college degrees, they taught her many important lessons. One lesson that they taught her was that she should respect living creatures and that she should not be afraid of them.
When Sylvia was just 13, her and her family moved to Clearwater, Florida on the Gulf of Mexico. Sylvia became quickly enthralled in learning about aquatic life in the gulf. Her parents could not afford to send her to college, but she got many scholarships. She worked in many college laboratories and that is where she first went scuba diving to try to study more aquatic life. She decided to study botany because she believed that studying plants in an ecosystem was very important. After she earned her master's degree, Sylvia took some time off to marry Graham Hawkes and had three children by him. In 1964, she left home for 6 weeks to go to a national science expedition in the Indian Ocean. In 1966, Sylvia graduated with her PHD and made a life long project to catalog every species of plant that can be found in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1968, Earle travelled one hundred feet below the ocean in the Bahamas. In 1969, she applied to participate in the tektite project which allowed teams of scientists to live for a few weeks in an enclosed space on the ocean floor fifty feet below the water's surface. At the time, Sylvia had spent over one thousand hours underneath the water doing research.
The project soon became very public and in no time, Sylvia Earle became a very recognizable face to many. Earle quickly became a public speaker and a major advocate for underwater research. Around the same time, Sylvia started to write for National Geographic and soon her books and films were published. With all of her research, she realized that there was a lot of damage in the oceans due to pollution and environmental degradation. She became very passionate about this issue and tried to raise lots of public awareness. In 1979, Sylvia walked on the seafloor at the lowest depth any living human had been before. At 1,250 feet below the surface, of the Hawaiian islands, she explored the depths of the ocean with nothing but a communication line connecting her to the world that lay above her. In the 1980s, her and her husband Graham Hawkes started many companies such as Deep Ocean Engineering and Deep Ocean Technologies. These companies were created to design and build undersea vehicles to help scientists move around at very deep depths that previous technology could not function at. In the 1990s, Earle took a break from her companies to work at the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration. She monitored the health of the ocean waters and tried to raise awareness about pollution.
Today, Sylvia works at National Geographic and works for advisory councils for information of the world's oceans. She received the TED prize award for her idea to a global network of marine protected preserves. She continues to raise awareness of the oceans health and tries to prevent pollution. She has been a very influential person in saving our oceans.