Mead, Sylvia Earle (1935–)

American marine biologist. Name variations: Sylvia Earle. Born Sylvia Alice Earle in Gibbstown, New Jersey, Aug 30, 1935; dau. of Lewis Reade (electrical contractor) and Alice Freas (Richie) Mead (nurse); Florida State University, BS, 1955; Duke University, MA, 1956, PhD, 1966; m. Giles W. Mead (ichthyologist and museum curator and later director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History), 1967; children: daughter Gale Mead, 2 adopted children, and 3 stepchildren.

One of the world's most respected aquanauts and marine scientists, served as an associate in botany at Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, and held appointments at Harvard University, University of California at Berkeley, and University of Southern Florida; conducted systematic and ecological studies of marine plants, and the interrelationship between marine animals and plants, in the Gulf of Mexico, northwest Indian Ocean, and southeast Pacific; made history as the leader of the 5-member team of women aquanauts participating in the Tektite project of underwater research in the Great Lameshur Bay of the Virgin Islands (1970); participated in numerous other undersea operations, including one under the aegis of SCORE (Scientific Cooperative Operational Research Expedition), during which she successfully completed the longest and deepest lock-out dive ever done by a woman; surpassed her own record, surveying the ocean floor untethered at 2,500 feet; served as chief scientist of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); joined the Sustainable Seas Expedition (1998). Inducted into Women's Hall of Fame at Seneca Falls (2000).

See also Women in World History.