SESSION TYPE: Featured Speaker (Panel) SESSION TITLE: Exploring Extreme Life From the Ocean Floor to Space with Wings Worldquest STRAND: STEM DAY: Saturday TIME: 8:30 - 9:45 am LOCATION: Regent Parlor, 2nd floor

How can we better engage students in the pursuit of scientific challenges? WINGS WorldQuest seeks out, supports and shares the courageous stories and discoveries of women explorers to inspire the public. From the bottom of the ocean floor to the outer limits of space, women explorers are making inroads to understanding the complexities and interrelatedness of all life, including life in extreme environments. Join WINGS co-Founder and Executive Director Milbry Polk and two WINGS Fellows, Jane Poyter and Maya Tolstoy as they discuss their research to understand life in the world’s most extreme environments. Educating future generations about the importance of science and exploration and instilling a sense of discovery in students is essential to the WINGS mission. The WINGS iExplore educational program is designed to offer a unique model of individual exploration by bringing the experiences of the WINGS fellows to serve as sources of inspiration. The scientific frontier is limitless and everyone needs to be part of the quest.

www.wingsworldquest.org

WINGS WorldQuest was founded in 2003 by Milbry Polk and Leila Hadley Luce to celebrate and support extraordinary women explorers with a promise to promote scientific exploration, education and conservation.


***BOOK SIGNING AT ONSITE BARNES & NOBLE BOOKSTORE TO FOLLOW SESSION (click here for schedule)

BIOGRAPHY

Milbry Polk is the Executive Director/Co-Founder of WIngs WorldQuest, a nonprofit organization that supports women explorers and uses their stories to inspire the next generation. Her books include Egyptian Mummies, Women of Discovery, The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad. She is a contributing editor to The Explorers Journal and a Fellow of The Explorers Club, The Royal Geographic Society, and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Her expeditions have been in the Middle East, Asia, the Arctic and Tibet. Polk graduated from the Madeira School and Harvard College.

Jane Poynter is a former Biosphere 2 crewmember, sustainability expert, author and president of a technology firm and a non-profit dedicated to environmental education. Her new book, Champions for Change, draws from the experience of explorers and athletes to show the science of sustainability and climate change.

Maya Tolstoy is a marine geophysicist specializing in seafloor volcanoes and earthquakes and in particular mid-ocean ridges hydrothermal systems that support unusual life forms. She has participated in 27 research trips at sea, 15 of which she led or co-led. In 2009 she was awarded the WINGS Sea Award. She has a Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and is currently an Associate Professor at Columbia University.