WINGS WorldQuest Announces
2008 Women of Discovery Awardees
Monday, November 12th, 2007. The Explorers Club – WINGS WorldQuest (WWQ) is pleased
to announce the 2008 Women of Discovery Awardees. These annual awards recognize
exploration and scientific excellence by women in the fields of Earth, Sea, Air & Space, and
Humanities. This year’s seven honorees, whose work and pioneering discoveries in the Arctic
have led to global and scientific advancement, will join over 30 previous awardees from the past
five years. WWQ Awardees receive honorariums in support of their fieldwork and are inducted
into the Wings Fellowship Program.
2008 WINGS WOMEN OF DISCOVERY AWARDEES
Courage Award: Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen
Ann Bancroft and Liv Arnesen, the first women to cross the Antarctic landmass on foot, are
recognized as two of the world’s preeminent polar explorers. They are both authors, teachers and
expedition leaders whose shared mission is to inspire people, particularly girls and women, to
follow their dreams.
Bancroft, the first woman to successfully ski overland to both poles and to Greenland, has
completed several grueling expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. Bancroft was the first woman
to reach the North Pole by foot and on sled. Her remarkable achievements led to her induction
into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
Arnesen, a Norwegian explorer, is the first woman to ski solo and unsupported to the South Pole,
a 50-day expedition of more than 750 miles. In 1992, she led the first unsupported women’s
crossing of the Greenland Ice Cap. She has led expeditions in Norway, Svalbard, Tibet and
Nepal.
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Earth Award: Jill Fredston
Jill Fredston has logged more than 20,000 miles exploring the rivers and coastlines in Alaska,
Canada, Greenland, and Norway in a 20-foot rowing shell. She is also considered one of the
world’s foremost avalanche experts, having spent countless hours suspended above fracture lines
to examine an icy world that is in constant change. Fredston is the author of two award winning
books, Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches and Rowing to Latitude, as well as co-founder of
the Alaska Mountain Safety Center.
Air & Space Award: Birgit Sattler
An Austrian explorer whose research focuses on atmospheric studies, as well as ice in the Arctic
and elsewhere, Sattler made the pioneering discovery that clouds are filled with living
organisms. Having completed a PhD on microorganisms in mountain lakes, her interests include
bacterial production and activity, ice physics, and microbial processes in snow and in the
atmosphere. Her current project, “Origin and Dynamics of Bacteria in the Winter Cover of a
High Mountain Lake”, investigates the classification of bacteria that inhabit ice, as compared to
those found in snow from the North and South Poles.
Sea Award: Vera Kingeekuk Metcalf
Vera Kingeekuk Metcalf’s community-based projects document traditional ecological
knowledge and community resource management practices. In collaboration with hunters and
elders, Vera studies walrus population distribution, behavior, monitoring, and hunting, as well as
issues related to climate change and subsistence economy. Now involved in the US Arctic
Commission to preserve native languages, she lives in Alaska and participates in a variety of
subsistence activities in Nome and Savoonga.
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Humanity Award: Irina Nikolaeva
Russian linguist Irina Nikolaeva has spent years documenting endangered languages including
syntax, morphology, typology, and information structure and the traditional knowledge they
embody. She has focused most notably on the Kolyma Yukaghir dialect, spoken by about forty
people in North-East Siberia as well as Uralic, Altaic, and Paleosiberian languages.
Field Research Award: Lene Kielsen Holm
A native of Greenland and member of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), Lene Holm is
working with indigenous communities to study traditional knowledge about sea ice and its
movement patterns. The Sila-Inuk project collects observations from local sealers, fisherman,
sheep breeders, and other indigenous groups to document their experiences with newly changing
ice and weather conditions that have resulted from global warming.
The 2008 WWQ Women of Discovery Awards will be held at Cipriani’s Fifth Avenue and 23rd
Street on March 5th. The awardees will lecture at The American Museum of Natural History on
Saturday, March 8th.
For further information about the gala, please contact Hadley Jensen at (212) 759-1128,
Hadley@wingsworldquest.org.
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