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Hello everyone!
Wishing you and yours a Happy Solstice, summer or winter, depending on your hemisphere! Here at WINGS, it’s also a significant time of year as we announce our 2022 Women of Discovery honorees - five extraordinary explorers making discoveries and finding solutions to global problems through innovative research and conservation programs in science, exploration and advocacy. We invite you to learn more about their groundbreaking work as we add updates to our website leading up to the Women of Discovery Awards Gala on October 19, 2022. Our gala will be held in New York City at Tribeca 360°, and we would love to see you there!
We hope you enjoy the expeditions featured here, starting in our planet's polar regions. While each Fellow & Flag Carrier’s expedition is unique, they share a common goal to explore unchartered territory, observe and preserve wildlife, discover and collect new data, and contribute to important advances in science and humanities. Across more than 70 countries as well as both poles, the WINGS Women of Discovery inspire us with their passion for exploration and as role models for the next generation.
Please join us in our mission to support these high-achieving women in science and exploration by making a donation here. With your help, WINGS and our Fellows & Flag Carriers will continue to soar to new heights.
Warmly,
Carrie Maloney
Executive Director
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An Early Summer Cool Down With Our Polar Explorers!
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Felicity Aston: Flexibility and Purpose in Arctic Exploration
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For our explorers, the last few years have presented seemingly insurmountable challenges that have built steep walls between them and their work, passions, and goals. Because our explorers are often guided by the boundaries of nature rather than those of nations, international issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters, border lockdowns, and war have presented them with an ultimatum: adapt or quit. The true strength and courage of WINGS Fellows and Flag Carriers have risen to the surface as many have charted new courses, created new goals, and chased new dreams.
One such explorer is Felicity Aston, a WINGS Fellow and Flag Carrier, who turned an expedition to the North Pole into a research and training expedition after war broke out in the Ukraine in February. The recipient of the 2014 Women of Discovery Award for Courage, Felicity Aston was the first woman to cross Antarctica alone and has since led expeditions to some of the coldest places on Earth. Continuing her work with WINGS, Felicity has been awarded multiple WINGS Flags to carry with her to the ice and snow. Most recently, Felicity carried Flag #27 to Svalbard, where she used flexibility, courage, and quick-thinking to overcome multiiple barriers and complete a highly successful expedition. It is the will, creativity, and innovative mindset of WINGS explorers like Felicity that give meaning to "flexability."
In an interview with WINGS, Felicity explained the circumstances and choices surrounding her April 2022 expedition to Svalbard:
WWQ: In what ways did global circumstances affect your planned expedition?
Aston: As soon as I heard that Russia had invaded Ukraine early in March 2022, I knew it meant that we would not be going to the North Pole as planned that April. The regular logistics that provide access to the North Pole are all operated out of northern Russia, and many of the planes and crews used to fly people from Svalbard in Norway to the ice are Ukrainian. It was obvious there would be a problem.
Sure enough, about a week later we got the official word that there would be no logistics in place for the North Pole in 2022 and were offered the option of cancelling our North Pole expedition altogether or postponing until April 2023. We decided on the latter option.
Although we were all disappointed not to be going on the expedition we had planned, the reasons for the postponement put it into perspective. Compared to the ordeal being suffered by so many in Ukraine, our disappointment was nothing and we had not a moment of complaint.
WWQ: What was your original plan?
Aston: Our original plan had been to ski the last degree of latitude across the sea ice of the Arctic Ocean to reach the North Pole. The purpose of our journey was to collect information about the sea ice at those high latitudes, including a series of snow, ice and water samples. Under the guidance of Dr. Ulyana Horodyskyj in the US, the information and material we collected would contribute to a number of different studies researching Arctic sea ice, including investigating albedo, black carbon and atmospherically deposited microplastics.
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Feclitity Aston data collection, Svalbard
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| WWQ: How easy or difficult was it to be flexible?
Aston: Once we decided that we wanted to create an alternate expedition for April, the difficulty was devising a plan that provided the same scientific purpose and sense of challenge for the team in a very short space of time. Organizing an expedition to Svalbard is an intimidating prospect that usually requires months of preparation. Having already passed the strict deadlines for applying for various permits and permissions, we were severely restricted in where we could go and what we could do. We had to let go of any pre-conceived ideas of what makes a worthy expedition and focus instead on the basics of purpose - the area close to the main settlement of Svalbard would not have been our first destination choice and yet, when we looked at it without prejudice, it was a beautiful area that offered plenty of challenge and opportunity for interesting science too that would not only stand up on its own merit but be a valuable companion to the science we planned for the North Pole.
WWQ: Why was it important to you to carry a WINGS Flag on this expedition?
Aston: Carrying the flag on the expedition to Svalbard signaled its significance as a worthy expedition in its own right, as well as the fact that B.I.G.(Before It's Gone) was no longer a single journey but a wider project with a much broader scope.
WWQ: Was your expedition a success?
Aston: We set out with clear objectives - to make a safe journey from Barentsburg to Longyearbyen, to complete our scientific data collection goals, to provide a great training experience that would prepare us as a team for the future North Pole journey, and to have a really great experience that we would thoroughly enjoy. We succeeded in all those objectives, so we judge the trip to have been a really successful one!
WWQ: What does it mean to you to be an explorer in difficult times?
Aston: What sets explorers apart from travelers is curiosity and a sense of purpose. An expedition as opposed to a journey means setting out to answer questions. Fortunately for us, those questions can often be answered in many different ways, and that means that when circumstances change or obstacles are put in the way, there is usually a way to be found around them.
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| For more information about her recent expedition, The B.I.G - Before It's Gone - North Pole Expedition (Svalbard) 2022, please visit bignorthpole.com
If you would like to support women like Felicty Aston, please consider making a donation to WINGS by clicking here or on the green "Donate" button located at the bottom of the page. Thank you for making these expeditons and discoveries happen!
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Felicity Aston and her Team with Flag #27
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Spotlight On: Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen
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Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen
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| WINGS Fellows Ann Bancroft (2008) and Liv Arnesen (2008) recently returned home from Antarctica. Their January 2022 expedition marked 21 years since their November 2000-2001 expedition, during which they skied and sailed for 94 days over 1,717 miles to reach the South Pole and cross Antarctica.
Friends and expedition partners before becoming part of the WINGS community, Bancroft and Arnesen have completed numerous journeys and launched the BAE Institue (Bancroft Arnesen Explore) Access Water Project together.
WINGS Flag in hand, Bancroft and Arnesen sailed to Antarctica and returned home safely on the Viking Octantis. Stepping foot back in the places they had been 21 years earlier, Bancroft told WINGS that she and Arseson made a point of taking pictures of themsevles in those spots; capturing the physical and, in many ways, mental differences that over two decades of exploration, knowledge, and discoveries made on them.
WINGS is honored to be represented by these two extraordinary polar explorers. We congratulate them on their past achievements and look forward to supporting them on their future projects and expeditions.
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| Heating Things Up! Spotlight On: Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, Helen Thayer
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It is no mystery why Helen Thayer was awarded the 2014 Women of Discovery Lifetime Achievement Award. Her thirst for adventure has not only taken her on solo walks across remote deserts and kayak trips down dangerous rivers, but also earned her the distinction of being the first woman to travel alone and unsupported to one of the world's poles when she made it to the Magnetic North Pole at age 50. Although many of her expeditions took place in the cold, her recent accomplishment will keep the rest of us from complaining about the summer heat. In 2017 at the age of 80, Thayer became the first person to walk the full length of Death Valley solo and unsupported. When asked about her journey, she told WINGS, "There is no water along the route, therefore I had to carry all of my water on a cart that, fully loaded, weighed 280 pounds." She battled nightime temperatures of 104 degrees, food poisoning, and exhaustion, but accomplished her unbelievable goal. She explained that "I knew I was in serious trouble, but my motto of one step at a time always gets me to my goal." With no plans to stop, she is embarking on a project to trek the lengths of several National Parks to study them for a series of children's books. Thayer is currently also working on a book about her 225-mile, 13-day journey through Death Valley. For more information about her books and expedtions, please visit helenthayer.com and read our blog on the WINGS WorldQuest website.
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The Women of Discovery Awards Gala is back this fall!Please join our in-person celebration on October 19, 2022, at Tribeca 360 in New York City, as we honor five new extraordinary Women of Discovery Fellows.
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 | Jill Heinerth, Fellow, Lifetime Achievement
Jill Heinerth is one of the world’s premier underwater explorers, and the first person to dive inside iceberg caves. A pioneering polar explorer, cave diver, author, speaker, filmmaker, and climate advocate, she leads expeditions into extreme environments to advance scientific and geographic knowledge.
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 | Karletta Chief, Fellow
Dr. Karletta Chief, who is Diné (Navajo) and grew up in Black Mesa, Arizona, works to improve our understanding, tools, and predictions of watershed hydrology, unsaturated flow in arid environments, and how natural and human disturbances affect soil hydrology through the use of physically based methods.
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 | Adjany Costa, Fellow
Adjany Costa, an ethno-conservationist and ichthyologist based in Angola, is developing a community-based natural resource management model for the Okavango Delta, one of the world's last truly wild spaces, to help provide people with the legal and economic frameworks for protecting their land and the waterways.
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 | Citlalli Morelos-Juarez, Fellow
Dr. Citlalli Morelos-Juarez is a primatologist and conservationsist who started working in Tesoro Escondido, Ecuador, in 2011. After years of community-based conservation, Morelos-Juarez is the Field Manager of Jocotoco's Tesoro Escondio Reserve.
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 | Rae Wynn-Grant, Fellow
Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, a large carnivore ecologist, is a pioneer among black women in her field, with an expertise in investigating human impact on the behavior and ecology of large carnivores. She uses spatial modeling techniques to explore, understand, and mitigate the ecological and social drivers of human-carnivore conflict.
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Sheila Ochugboju ('16) - Started a new role as Executive Director for The Alliance for Science, based at the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University. It advocates for science-based solutions to key issues of our time, including reducing agriculture's environmental footprint, mitigating the climate crisis, reducinng poverty, and improving food security and nutrition. She will be focusing on the regions of Africa and Asia.
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Fellows heading to the Polar Regions
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Arita Baaijens ('14) - Expected to join Susan Eaton, a geoscientist, explorer and WINGS Flag Carrier focusing on the polar regions, as a member of the 2022 Sea Women Expeditions to Arctic Norway.
Birgit Sattler ('08) - Preparing for a two-week expedition to Svalbard, Norway, beginning this month.
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Get Involved
If you are inspired by the five 2022 Women of Discovery and the other high-achieving women that WINGS supports, please consider donating and visit our website to learn how you can empower our work.
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