Dr. Sylvia Earle

Sylvia A. Earle is an oceanographer with expertise in ocean science, technology, exploration, and conservation and a spokesperson for policies that emphasize a harmonious relationship between human prosperity and the natural living systems that maintain the habitability of Earth.

She is a National Geographic Explorer at Large, Founder and Chair of the California-based NGO, Mission Blue, an advisor to the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M, Corpus Christi, an advisor to the Earth Observatory of Singapore, Nantung University, a founding Ocean Elder, a founding IUCN Patron, a founding Planetary Guardian, a board member for Just, Inc. and since 1981, a Rolex Testimonee. Formerly Chief Scientist of NOAA, Curator of Phycology at the California Academy of Sciences and Research Fellow at Harvard University, she had served as leader of 100+ expeditions with thousands of hours underwater, given professional talks in more than 100 countries, authored 250 publications, and traveled globally for research expeditions and conservation, science and policy events.

Called Her Deepness by the New Yorker and New York Times, Living Legend by the Library of Congress, and Time Magazine’s First Hero for the Planet, she has been profiled in several books and by Time Magazine, the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, Life Magazine, Financial Times, Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, Vogue, Forbes, People Magazine, USA Today, Parade, Good Housekeeping, Elle, Tatler Singapore, Der Spiegel, National Geographic, CNN, ABC, NBC, BBC, PBS, in the Netflix film, Mission Blue, and others.

She has served on the boards of several Fortune 500 companies, various national and international commissions and dozens of scientific and conservation organizations. She is a lifetime trustee of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Aspen Institute, and the NRDC. Her more than 150 honors include 34 honorary degrees, Spain’s Princess of Asturias Prize for Concord, The National Geographic Hubbard Medal, Royal Geographical Society Patrons Medal, Explorers Club Medal, the Lowell Thomas Medal, the Society of Women Geographers Medal, Harris World Ecology Medal, National Wildlife Federation Ding Darling Medal, IUCN Icon of Nature, UNEP Champion of the Earth, Netherlands Order of the Golden Ark, the 2009 TED Prize, Monticello’s Thomas Jefferson Medal, Walter Cronkite Communication Award, Villanova’s Mendel Medal, the Tallberg Leadership Prize, Chiles’s Senado Commandador Medal, American Prairie’s Ken Burns Conservation Leadership Award and the 2024 Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication.

Her book, Sea Change, led to involvement in the formation in 2000 of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M, Corpus Christi, TX and in 2003, she initiated and co-chaired with Gordon Moore a global conference supported by Conservation International, “Defying Ocean’s End,” that brought together business leaders, government officials and scientists to develop a ten year strategy with costs needed to achieve human prosperity while maintaining the natural living systems that underpin the habitability of Earth.

After winning the TED Prize in 2009, she founded the non-profit Mission Blue to support ocean exploration, research and care by developing a global network of community-based “Hope Spots” - currently including more than 165 places in more than 100 countries – to restore and protect ocean biodiversity, climate stability and human prosperity. In collaboration with ESRI (Earth Systems Research Institute) Hope Spots are geographically defined using ARC-GIS Storymaps with a framework for digitally gathering and sharing data, stories, photographs and insights.