ALBANY, NY (02/11/2020) (readMedia)-- NEWS RELEASE

February 11, 2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT INFORMATION

Kelly Cartwright

518.465.7085 ext 107

cartwrightk@adgcommunications.org

Dr. Sylvia Earle to Receive 2020 Women of Discovery Lifetime Achievement Award

NEW YORK, NY – Dr. Sylvia A. Earle will receive the Women of Discovery Lifetime Achievement Award from WINGS WorldQuest in New York on May 13. Dr. Earle is a renowned oceanographer, explorer, author and lecturer who has been named "Her Deepness" by The New York Times and The New Yorker; a "Living Legend" by the Library of Congress; and "First Hero for the Planet" by Time magazine.

Dr. Earle will be one of three ocean scientists to receive a Women of Discovery Award at WINGS WorldQuest's annual Women of Discovery Awards and Gala on May 13 at Tribeca 360 in New York City. The Women of Discovery Awards recognize extraordinary women making significant contributions to world knowledge and science through exploration. To date, the organization has granted $678,000 to 132 Fellows and Flag Carriers from across the globe and published and showcased the findings of more than 30 women-led field expeditions.

Dr. Earle is an inspiring leader and advocate for the world's oceans. The first female chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Dr. Earle now leads Mission Blue and focuses her work on identifying and protecting "Hope Spots," a network of protected areas on land and in the ocean that safeguard the living systems that provide the underpinnings of global processes, from biodiversity to stability and resiliency in response to accelerating climate change. Under Dr. Earle's leadership, there are now nearly 100 Hope Spots worldwide. Dr. Earle, 84 years old and still ocean diving, continues to break barriers, promote understanding and speak for the world's oceans.

Liz Taylor and her team at DOER Marine, Inc. will receive WINGS WorldQuest's inaugural Award for Innovation in Technology. Under Ms. Taylor's leadership as president and CEO, DOER (Deep Ocean Exploration and Research) has grown from a consulting and field services firm to a full-service engineering solutions company that designs and builds subsea robotic and manned systems for a variety of applications, including deep ocean exploration and critical infrastructure inspection.

Ms. Taylor has applied DOER's technology to numerous coastal restoration and public access projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, including water and wastewater management, capture of marine plastics, and the Wild Oyster Project, which focuses on restoring native oysters to the bay to improve water quality and shoreline integrity.

Dr. Diva Amon will receive the Sea Award. Dr. Amon is a Trinidadian deep-sea biologist with a special interest in deep-sea organisms and how human activity affects life far below the ocean's surface. Dr. Amon has dedicated much of her time to exploring some of the deepest and most remote ocean habitats, from Antarctica to the Mariana Trench. She regularly ventures to the depths in submersibles, with her deepest dive to 1.6 miles below the ocean surface in the Cayman Trench in the Caribbean. She has discovered six new deep-sea species, including a lobster and two sponges. Dr. Amon is a strong voice on the need to effectively manage and protect the deep ocean from human impacts, including from mining, pollution and climate change.

"WINGS is thrilled to honor Dr. Sylvia Earle and her fellow ocean advocates at the 2020 Women of Discovery Awards," said Beth Nixon, chair of the WINGS WorldQuest Board of Directors. "Our three awards this year will all go to ocean scientists and explorers. A healthy, thriving, resilient ocean is key to a sustainable, hopeful future and each of these women is providing powerful and practical ocean-based innovative solutions to saving our blue planet."

The three 2020 awardees, along with past years' WINGS WorldQuest Fellows and Flag Carriers, will present and discuss their most recent discoveries at a forum the morning of the Gala.

The Women of Discovery honorees are nominated and chosen by the WINGS WorldQuest Fellows network, Board of Directors and Advisory Committee, which is includes accomplished public and private sector experts in the sciences and exploration. This is the organization's 14th Women of Discovery Awards. Tickets to the event are available at wingsworldquest.org.

WINGS WorldQuest is a registered nonprofit organization founded in 2003 to recognize and support extraordinary women in science and exploration. It is the only organization of its kind, awarding unrestricted funding to women in scientific exploration.

###