Sylvia Earle

When Sylvia Earle was born in New Jersey in 1935, most people thought that marine biology was a field only for men. Dr. Earle has been proving her whole life just how wrong that assumption is.

Earle’s parents loved the outdoors and encouraged Sylvia’s interest in nature. She remembers standing in ocean water for the first time when she was only three years old. One day a friend of her brother borrowed his dad’s copper diving helmet. He let Sylvia and her brother try wearing it underwater. That was her first experience breathing compressed air through a tube.