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| Dear Friends,
We hope wherever you are reading this, you are enjoying the change of season the recent equinox brought! April is a busy month for us at WINGS, and we're so glad to see many of you soon at our upcoming events.
On April 26th, WINGS Flag Carrier Dr. Cassandra Quave will join us in NYC for her Explorer Talk, "An Evening With the Plant Hunter." Dr. Quave will be sharing stories from her latest expedition, "Plants of the Egyptian Oases," as well as a customized tea blending course for each guest. A limited number of tickets are available, so be sure to purchase yours soon.
We have a handful of tickets left for WINGS 2011 Fellow Dr. Gladys Zikusoka's book launch, "Walking with Gorillas: The Journey of an African Wildlife Vet," on April 20th in NYC.
April and May mark the launch of three new Flag Expeditions to Iceland, New Zealand, and Alaska. Read on to follow the journeys of Polar Explorer Felicity Aston, Materials Scientist Haiza Haroon, and Environmental Scientist and Explorer Maria Tzortziou as they embark on their expeditions to study different aspects of these vastly different environments.
Stay tuned for May 1st, when we will be announcing our 2023 Women of Discovery Fellows - five trailblazers pushing the boundaries of discovery with innovative ideas and brilliant initiatives. And be sure to save the date of October 12th, 2023, for our 20th Women of Discovery Awards in New York City. This year's event will be a reunion of Fellows and Flag Carriers from all over the globe that you won't want to miss, as we celebrate 20 years of WINGS, 100 Fellows and 100 Flag Carriers funded!
Yours in Exploration,
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Meredith Ayan
Executive Director
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| In this issue:
- WINGS Upcoming Events
- Flag Carrier Launch: Felicity Aston, The B.I.G. (Before It's Gone) Expedition
- Flag Carrier Launch: Haiza Haroon Ancient Glacier Gravels and Slits Exploration
- Flag Carrier Launch: Maria Tzortziou Arctic Shifts
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Explorer Talk with Dr. Cassandra Quave
April 26th, 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm, NYC
An Evening With 'The Plant Hunter' Dr. Cassandra Quave
Tickets: $40
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Photo courtesy of Cassandra Quave
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Dr. Quave will share stories of scientific innovation, pulling from her experiences leading international expeditions and discovering new medicines in her laboratory at Emory University School of Medicine. She’ll also share a behind-the-scenes look at her most recent expedition to the remote oases of Egypt’s western desert, which was supported by WINGS. As a bonus, Dr. Quave will lead us in a tea blending class at the end of the event. Each attendee will receive a tea blending kit and learn about the qualities and medicinal purposes of the herbs to craft your own personal blend!
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WINGS Exclusive Explorer Book Launch
April 20th, 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm, NYC
Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, 2011 Humanity Award
Walking with Gorillas: The Journey of an African Wildlife Vet
Tickets: $35
Uganda’s 1st wildlife vet and founder of Conservation Through Public Health, Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, will share her remarkable story from her animal-loving childhood to a career protecting endangered mountain gorillas. Walking with Gorillas takes the reader on Dr. Gladys’ personal journey, from her early days as a student in Uganda, enduring the assassination of her father during civil war, to her veterinary education in England, to establishing the first veterinary department for the Ugandan government, to founding one of the first organizations in the world that enables people to coexist with wildlife through improving the health and wellbeing of both. In the face of discrimination, one woman’s passion and determination to build a brighter future for the local wildlife and human community offers inspiration and insights into what is truly possible for our planet.
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New Flag Carrier Expedition Launch: Felicity Aston
The B.I.G. - Before It's Gone - North Pole Expedition (Iceland)
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Photo courtesy of Felicity Aston
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Polar explorer and research scientist, Felicity Aston and her team launch their expedition on to Drangjokull, Iceland on April 8th. They'll be collecting surface snow and ice samples which will be analyzed for different forms of pollution, including airbourne microplastic, black carbon and heavy metals. The team are also contributing to a long term study of human psychology in extremes, a specialist study on fatigue, and two different citizen science programs looking at arctic clouds and snow depth, respectively. The expedition will be the first time such a comprehensive sampling campaign has been undertaken on Drangjokull, Iceland's northernmost and extremely remote glacier.
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New Flag Carrier Expedition Launch: Haiza Haroon
Ancient Glacier Gravels and Slits Exploration at Omarama Clay Cliffs, New Zealand for Bioscience Research
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Photo courtesy of Haiza Haroon
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Materials scientist Haiza Haroon will lead the expedition to South Island, New Zealand, endeavoring to discover the potential use of earthy material namely clay collected from Omarama Clay Cliffs as a nanofiller for biomedical applications. Haiza will also explore the possible use of Omarama clay to isolate dangerous waste materials from the environment. The research outcome of this expedition will provide beneficial scientific knowledge on how the origin, climate, composition, and geological factors can determine the properties and quality of clay. Haiza and her research team have hypothesized that clay originated from Clay Cliffs, may consist of different metal ions composition as compared to clay from Malaysia since it originally formed by the flow of ancient glaciers from lakes and rivers in the area over a million years ago.
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New Flag Carrier Expedition Launch: Maria Tzortziou
Arctic Shifts- Impacts on Coastal Ecosystems and Communities
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Photo courtesy of Maria Tzortziou
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Environmental scientist and explorer Maria Tzortziou will travel to Alaska's west coast ‒ one of the most productive areas for Alaska fisheries and simultaneously a "ground zero" for climate change ‒ to study the profound impacts that rapidly changing land-water interactions are having on Arctic carbon cycles, ecology, economies, and communities.
Professor Tzortziou and her team will conduct novel physical, optical, chemical, and biological measurements along the Yukon River terrestrial-aquatic landscape. A key objective of the expedition is to capture the impact of the spring freshet -- one of the most extreme hydrological events and bio-geophysical forcings in the Arctic – on the coastal ecosystem. They will also collaborate closely with local Alaskan communities to integrate community-based monitoring in their field activities and expand the spatial and temporal domain of their measurements.
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