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| Dear Friends,
As we approach the holiday season, I am excited to share with you the most recent updates and highlights from WINGS. Your unwavering support has made our recent successes possible, and we are grateful to our community.
This year we celebrated our 20th anniversary, culminating with our marquis events; our Women of Discovery Awards Gala and Global Explorers Forum in New York City. The evening of the gala, in a ballroom aglow, guests gathered from near and far under the unifying ethos that women-led research is not only just, but necessary. We honored five new Women of Discovery that exemplify the best of women in the field of scientific exploration: Dr. Dawn Wright (Lifetime Achievement), Dr. Zuzana Buřivalová, Dr. Emma Camp, Dr. Alifa Bintha Haque and Cristina Mittermeier.
The Global Explorers Forum illuminated the Fellows and Flag Carriers work with long-form presentations and panel discussions that shed light on pressing conservation issues while fostering a dialogue exchange regarding women in STEM. We heard from 15 of our WINGS Explorers throughout the day. New connections were made and collaborations were proposed all in the spirit of education, empowerment and relentless curiosity. Learn more about our 2023 Fellows and Flag Carriers and see photos from these memorable events. Save the Date for our 21st Women of Discovery Awards Gala, October 24, 2024!
The spirit of exploration is greater than the fear of the unknown. You are part of that adventure into the unknown through your continued support of WINGS and we are grateful to have you along to share the journey.
Yours in Exploration,
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Meredith Ayan
Chief Executive Officer
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| In this issue:
- WINGS 2024 Schedule of Events
Be the first to know about our Explorer Talks and save the date for the 2024 Women of Discovery Awards, October 24, 2024!
- Update From the Field: Dr. Birgit Sattler dispatch from Antarctica
- Flag Carrier Launch: Dr. Ulyana Horodyskyj Peña: Spatial Distribution and Impact of Black Carbon in Antarctica
- WINGS Women in the News
- WINGS Fellow Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka named one of BBC's 100 Women of 2023
- WINGS Fellow and Board Member Dr. Krithi Karanth featured on CNN's Call to Earth
- WINGS Flag Carrier Callie Veelenturf featured on CBS for her Rights of Nature project
- WINGS Fellow & astronomer Dr. Vera Rubin selected by The United States Mint (Mint) as an honoree for the 2025 American Women Quarters™ Program
Are you looking to play a greater role supporting extraordinary women in science and exploration? Would you like to connect with a fantastic group of young professionals committed to philanthropy? The WINGS Associate Board is recruiting new members this winter! Click here to apply by January 7th and click here to learn more about WINGS. Feel free to reach out directly to info@wingsworldquest.org for more information!
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Update From the Field: Dr. Birgit Sattler
Dispatches from Antarctica
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On October 27th, 2023 WINGS Flag Carrier and Fellow Dr. Birgit Sattler and her team embarked on a two month Antarctic research expedition to Lake Untersee. This expedition is investigating microbial communities in ice and lake water under the aspect of climate change. Additionally, anthropogenic markers such as microplastics, pesticides and radionuclides are investigated as a result of local sources (microplastics) and long range transport (pesticides, radionuclides). The expedition leader will dive with one colleague in the lake to investigate stromatolites which are like living fossils and unique.
The team will gain insights into transport processes of anthropogenic markers as well as a quantification and qualification thereof. For Antarctica, this would be a unique data set in this combination. Additionally, they aim to get deeper insights into adaptation processes of microbes inhabiting glacier ice and the metagenomics of stromatolites. Lake Untersee is a unique lake to investigate microbial reactions to change and this type of expedition exists now for ca.15 years.
Before the team began their journey, Dr. Sattler shared her outlook about carrying the WINGS Flag: "The WINGS flag should fly with our expedition since I am convinced about the educational effect science like this will have. We will also stay in contact with schools in Austria to talk about our life on the ice but mostly about the science. We want to raise the awareness of youngsters for the vulnerability of these ecosystems and also the need for science to hand over sustainable solutions to the next generation."
Dr. Sattler provided WINGS with an update from the field on 11/18/23: "Best wishes from Antarctica, such a stormy and powerful place! A storm with gusts of 170kmh pulverised our camp but we are back on track now. I simply love it!!!"
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New Flag Carrier Expedition Launch: Dr. Ulyana Horodyskyj Peña
Spatial Distribution and Impact of Black Carbon in Antarctica
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Photo courtesy of Ulyana Horodyskyj Peña
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Glaciologist, geologist and mountaineer Dr. Ulyana Horodyskyj Peña is the head of communications for the University of Colorado Boulder's Climate Adaptation Science Center. Her research has covered the growth of supraglacial lakes and flooding on Himalayan glaciers, as well as the impacts of pollution and soot falling on snow and ice in high latitudes and altitudes. By the time she turned 23, she had traveled to and worked on all 7 continents. In 2016, Ulyana was chosen as mission commander for the NASA Johnson Space Center's HERA (Human Exploration Research Analog) 30-day isolation experiment, simulating a long-duration mission to an asteroid. She was named one of 120 semifinalists out of 18,354 applicants for NASA's 2017 astronaut class.
In January 2024, Ulyana will travel to Antarctica aboard Le Commandant Charcot, PONANT's icebreaker ship.The expedition will sail from the far south of the American continent, starting in Ushuaia, Argentina, and complete a half-circumnavigation of Antarctica, before pulling into port in New Zealand a month later. Locations visited will include the Bellingshausen Sea, Amundsen Sea, and Ross Sea along with West Antarctica, to study the spatial distribution of pollutants (black carbon, BC), to quantiful the extent of human impact to this pristine region.
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Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka
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WINGS Fellow and Uganda's first full-time female wildlife veterinarian, Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka was honored as one of the BBC's top 100 influential women of 2023. Recognized for her work with mounatain gorillas, Dr. Gladys focuses on the the health of the mountain gorillas as well as the impact of human interaction. Under her care, the once critically endangered species in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest has thrived - the population now two-thirds larger than it was in 1996.
By purchasing land to expand the forest, Dr. Gladys has helped ensure that the gorillas keep a safe distance from humans, to decrease the spread of human disease, and protect local farmers' crops. WINGS was proud to host the first event of her U.S. book tour for "Walking with Gorillas." To learn more about her work, purchase a copy of her book here. Congratulations, Dr. Gladys!
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WINGS Fellow and Board Member, Dr. Krithi Karanth is the Executive Director of the Centre for Wildlife Studies in India. The Centre for Wildlife Studies is an internationally recognized centre-of-excellence in the arenas of wildlife research, conservation, policy, and education. CWS India practices science-based conservation to promote the protection of wildlife and wild lands.
CNN's Call to Earth recently visited Krithi at CWS to highlight her work focusing on reducing human-animal conflict and how she works with the local population to conserve and protect the interests of both humans and animals. We especially love Krithi's committment to educating the next generation of students to learn about and respect animals through interactive mediums like coloring and games. Watch the CNN segment here!
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WINGS Flag Carrier Callie Veelenturf has dedicated her life's work to protecting the Leatherback Turtle. Through her work with sea turtles, Callie now has a larger goal in focus: to protect the rights of nature. By working with the Panamanian government and providing her insights and expertise, in 2021 she successfully help to pass legislation protecting the rights of nature. The President of Panama signed the law in February 2022, a monumental victory for conservation in Panama.
This forward-thinking movement will protect habitats, species and areas critical to our planet's health by blocking development of industries that could harm them. By prioritizing needs of the ecosystems, we can ensure they "What we're doing now is not working. This provides a different way of interacting with nature, and I think we're at a point now where it's worth a shot." Watch the CBS Saturday morning segment here.
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Dr. Vera Rubin using a measuring engine. Photo courtesy of the Carnegie Institution of Washington
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WINGS Fellow & astronomer Dr. Vera Rubin has been selected by The United States Mint (Mint) as an honoree for the 2025 American Women Quarters™ Program! This is a Mint production run of quarters honoring significant women in American History, chosen by the US Treasury Department.
Dr. Rubin is most famous for her pioneering work on the rotation of galaxies. Her work in the 1970s also thoroughly changed our understanding of the universe by providing evidence of dark matter. She was a trailblazer and leader for women in several science fields, and especially mentored women astronomers to get noticed for their work.
Dr. Rubin also was honored in 2019 with the the first major, publicly-funded astronomy facility in the United States to be named after a woman, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. One of the main goals of the Observatory, under construction on Cerro Pachón in Chile, is to learn more about dark matter, which makes up more than 80% of all the matter in the Universe. Starting in 2024, @rubin_observatory will take images of the sky every night for a decade, imaging the entire visible sky every 3-4 nights, making it particularly good at detecting objects that have changed in brightness, like supernovae, or in position, like asteroids. Its light-collecting power and sensitive camera will also help us discover about 20 billion galaxies and a similar number of stars.
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