In 1993, Leila Hadley Luce and Milbry Polk founded Wings Trust, Inc. to preserve the oral histories, discoveries, and accomplishments of women explorers and help promote women today working in the field sciences.

Nearly ten years later, in 2001, Milbry Polk and Mary Tiegreen published, “Women of Discovery: A Celebration of Intrepid Women Who Explored the World,” to introduce the public to the incredible stories and adventures of past and present women explorers. In 2003, WINGS WorldQuest was created to expand the mission of Wings Trust, leading to the founding of the WINGS Women of Discovery Awards program, which celebrates and supports the ground-breaking work of current women explorers and scientists. Since its inception, WINGS WorldQuest has recognized and brought to light the accomplishments of over 60 contemporary women explorers and established a legacy to honor the contributions of the women before them. Through their vision and work, these diverse women have uncovered incredible knowledge in the social and physical sciences, while setting inspiring examples for men, children and women alike.

WINGS offers a wide range of public programs, including:

WINGS is home to a web-based resource center, which features the biographies, discoveries and personal stories of its international Fellows. The website serves as a portal to a virtual community for intellectual exchange among women explorers and an entryway into science, exploration and discovery for the public and learners of all ages. Through educational initiatives like its recently launched Discover! program WINGS brings its Women of Discovery to young people as positive role models to inspire, inform and engage them. Drawing on their stories of courage, perseverance and adventure WINGS is creating a collection of multi-media profiles which include contextual and background information on their field of study and the geographic location of their work, live tracking of their expeditions and a scaffolding of rich primary source content to inspire active learning across the curriculum, including the sciences, social studies, language arts, character education, and career exploration.