Ryan Bruin

Political Science 1100

Profile

Sylvia Earle
Sylvia Earle is an entrepreneur and a marine biologist whos love for the ocean
and the study of ocean life became her passion. She became intrigued and developed a
curiosity at a young age when she noticed little details of color and took a deep interest in
her surroundings. She loved nature and took a big interest in animals, plants and wildlife.
Although her parents were uneducated, they always taught her to love nature and wildlife
and to never be afraid of the unknown. Her minor visions lead into deeper inspection of
what was going on around her and she developed a love of creatures and the unknown.
Her interest in the ocean and its surroundings developed deeply when her family
moved to Florida close to the Gulf of Mexico (Life in the Ocean). Sylvia was an
intelligent child and received scholarships to help her through the education she desired.
She started her education by getting her Bachelors of Science at Florida University and
then went on to get her Masters and PhD from Duke University, along with 22 honorary
degrees. She supported herself through her education by working at laboratories on
campus. From here, her explorations went to a deeper level when she helped design
devises that allowed underwater dives to large depths beneath the sea. She started
experiencing ocean life by scuba diving, interested in exploring the ocean first hand.
Sylvia decided to take some time off from her botany specialties; she got married
and started a family but still remained active in her marine explorations. When her
children were still at a young age, she traveled to the Indian Ocean for six weeks to join a

National Science Foundation expedition. Throughout this time, she often found it
difficult to balance her family life and her many travels for her career. Also during this
time of her life, she worked on research for her PhD. Her dissertation went down in
history in the oceanographic community. Her research was based on a long, detailed
study of underwater plant life. Ever since then she has made it a lifelong goal to
categorize every single type of plant in the Gulf of Mexico where she grew up.
When Sylvia was four months pregnant, she traveled to 100 feet below the
Bahamas in the Deep Diver. She had spent more than a thousand research hours under
water. These types of things she did made her a recognizable face in this community.
After many of the excursions she accomplished, she was wanted as a public speaker and
became an advocate for underwater research. She began to write for National Geographic
and started making films and writing books on her experiences. Her main goal was to
raise awareness for sea life and to help the public understand the importance of keeping
the ocean clean and the harm of pollution to our waters (Explorers Biography).
Throughout a few years span, Sylvia had many opportunities to travel around the
world and do what she loves. She went to the Galapagos, China, Bahamas, and to the
Indian Ocean again. During this travel time, she got together with photographer Al
Giddings and together they investigated the battleship graveyard in the South Pacific. She
really enjoyed following wales and studying their many behaviors. She followed wales
from Hawaii, Bermuda, Africa, Australia to Alaska. In 1979 she walked on the ocean
floor deeper than anyone has ever gone before. In her pressurized space-looking suit, she
was taken down to the ocean floor and was released from the vessel. She explored for
over two hours with only one communication line connecting her to the vessel.

In the 1980s she, along with other designers, helped contribute to the companies
Deep Ocean Engineering and Deep Ocean Technologies. These companies design and
build underwater vehicles such as Deep Rover and Deep Flight which allow scientists to
go to deeper depths than ever before in technology history. These are some huge
contributions that she has made, and all of this while still being a wife and mother to her
three children. Some of her children have been able to work right beside her at Deep
Ocean Engineering.
About ten years later, she stopped working with the companies she helped
develop and served as a chief Scientist of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Administration. She was assigned and responsible to monitor the health for the nations
waters (Ambassador for the Worlds). One of her biggest accomplishments was in 1967
when she became a research fellow at the Farlow Herbarium of Harvard University and a
research scholar at the Radcliffe Institute. She also did a two-week experiment in St. John
where she observed the effects of pollution and coral reefs hands on. The work and
studies she did here was usually always created by an all male group, so it was an
inspiration to many that she was a female conducting such a thing.
She was the very first woman to serve as the chief scientist at the National
Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (Encyclopedia Brittanica). Sylvia Earle will go
down in history as a legend. She started to many new things and took chances that had
never been done before. She sacrificed herself and her life to the marine biology and has
educated the world about the importance of sea life and keeping the ocean clean. I am
excited to hear about more discoveries and accomplishments she will make in the future.
She is a brilliant woman with a desire to learn and grow and teach us about a world that is

so relevant to us. Under water life is so fascinating and intriguing. I am very happy that
someone like Sylvia helps contribute to the learning and growing of oceanography and
life under the sea.

Works Cited

AMBASSADOR FOR THE WORLDS OCEANS Sylvia Earle PhD. Academy of

Achievement. (2009). http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/ear0bio-1

ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITTANICA Sylvia Alice Earle. John P Rafferty. (September22,

2014). http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1756689/Sylvia-Alice-Earle

EXPLORERS BIOGRAPHY Oceanographer Sylvia Earle. National Geographic. 2014.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/bios/sylvia-earle/

LIFE IN THE OCEAN The Story of Oceanographer Sylvia Earle. Kirkus Reviews [serial
online]. January 2012;80(1):2450-2451. Available from: Literary Reference Center,
Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 25, 2014.