Nov. 12, 2004

Dr. Nathalie Cabrol to Receive 2005 Women Of Discovery Award

Wings, devoted to promoting scientific exploration and celebrating extraordinary women explorers, will present the third annual Wings Women of Discovery Awards on Wednesday, March 2, 2005 from 5:30 to 9:00 P.M. at New York’s National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South. The Wings Women of Discovery Awards are the first to recognize the contributions of women explorers who are pioneering discoveries on the frontiers of research and knowledge.

The awards will be given in five categories: Sea, Air and Space, Humanity, Lifetime Achievement, and the Leila Hadley Luce Award for Courage. Each awardee is chosen for her groundbreaking work achieved in one of those fields. The awardees of 2005 from North America, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden are:

SEA: Sue Hendrickson

Sue Hendrickson is an independent explorer who is searching for clues relating to ancient life. Depending on the time of year, she dives on ancient wrecks off the Philippine Islands and Cuba, and on the submerged ancient city of Herakleon in Egypt; hunts for fossil whales in the windswept deserts of Peru, and searches for dinosaurs in Wyoming. Hendrickson is best known for finding the largest Tyrannosaurus rex known that was named Sue in her honor, presently displayed at the Field Museum of Chicago. Hendrickson’s interests have also focused on searching for unusual amber and conch pearls which have been included in the museum exhibits Pearls and Amber. Wings is honoring Hendrickson for her underwater marine archaeological discoveries. As the principal diver on ancient wrecks and sunken cities and with her work mapping the wrecks off the coast of Cuba Sue Hendrickson is uncovering a rich historical panorama.

AIR AND SPACE: Nathalie Cabrol

Nathalie Cabrol is a planetary geologist who works with NASA Ames Research Center analyzing images and data from the Mars mission launches for evidence of water to find out if Mars developed environments that could have been, or still could be, habitable by living organisms. She has led rover field experiments and helped to determine the landing sites for the latest Mars Expeditions. Searching for a better understanding of Martian environments, Cabrol has been leading the Licancabur Expeditions to the highest lake on Earth (5916 m or 19523 ft) on the boundary of Chile and Bolivia where the conditions are analogous to those of ancient Martian lakes: low oxygen, intense UV (ultraviolet) radiation, and an atmospheric pressure only 50 percent of what it is at sea level. Cabrol is also a principal investigator with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute hoping to find evidence of life beyond earth.

HUMANITY: Ana Pinto

Ana Cristina Pinto-Llona is an archaeologist who spent much of her life organizing archaeological and palaeontological excavations in northern Spain. Her research on the palaeoecology of cave bears has changed the views on how these extinct animals lived and interacted with prehistoric humans, and her work in caves with fossils of mammoths, elephants, rhinoceros, lions and leopards in the same area has offered new perspectives on the extinction of these animals in southern Europe. She explored and probed several caves in Spain looking for testimonies on the origins of modern humans and in 2002 she made an astonishing discovery in a remote cave in Northern Spain. Her test excavations revealed an occupation sequence ranging from the Early Upper Paleolithic, to the Mousterian -- the first arrival of modern humans into Europe back to Neanderthals and probably further back to the time of Homo erectus. Given the richness of finds and the depth of the stratigraphic sequence, she will be excavating and researching The Sopeña Archaeological Project for decades to come. She is currently Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University.

Leila Hadley Luce Award for Courage : Sabriye Tenberken

Blind since she was 12 years old, Sabriye Tenberken studied Central Asian Studies at Bonn University where she mastered Mongolian, Chinese, and modern and classical Tibetan. Tenberken translated Tibetan into Braille and then traveled to Tibet where she established Tibet ’s only school for the blind in Lhasa. Traveling on horseback throughout Tibet, looking for blind children to bring to her school, she realized how sightless children, because of their blindness, suffered from unhealthy living conditions. In addition to teaching blind children how to read with Braille, Tenberken also teaches them how to climb in the Himalayas, and overcome the stigma of their disabilities. She is the founder and director of Braille Without Borders.

LIFE TIME ACHIEVEMENT: Marianne Greenwood

Marianne Hederstrom Greenwood, raised in northern Sweden, studied art in Stockholm. After World War II she moved to Antibes where she became the photographer for Picasso and other artists. She went on to spend decades living with, photographing and writing about indigenous people in the Americas, the Pacific Islands, Papua, and parts of Asia. Her work is collected by several museums and her archive is housed both at the Ethnographical Museum in Stockholm and at the Picasso Museum in Antibes. A gallery show of her photographs will be held at New York’s National Arts Club from February 27 to March 5, 2005. The exhibit will travel to Stockholm and to Nice.

Event Chairs :
Suzi Zetkus
zetkus@yahoo.com

Myrella Triana
mtriana@nyc.rr.com

Related Events:
The New York Hall of Science Women of Discovery Day March 3, 9 AM-1 P.M.
The Explorers Club Lectures by Award Winners: March 3, 6-9 P.M.

For more Informattion please contact
Milbry Polk, Director Wings Trust
845-365-0297
milbry@post.Harvard.edu
www.wingsworldquest.org

Contacts:

Dr. Nathalie Cabrol photo available