Called “Her Deepness” by The New Yorker and New York Times, Dr. Earle is a National Geographic Explorer at Large, founder and co-chair of Mission Blue, founder of Deep Ocean Exploration and Research (DOER), a founding Ocean Elder, a founding IUCN Patron of Nature, a founding director of the Deep HOPE foundation, chair of the Advisory Council for the Harte Research Institute, adviser for the Earth Observatory of Singapore at Nanyang Technological University, and former chief scientist of NOAA. She is the author of more than 230 publications and leader of more than one hundred expeditions, with years at sea and thousands of hours exploring under the ocean. A graduate of Florida State University with MA and PhD degrees from Duke University and thirty-four honorary doctorates, she has decades of service on corporate and nonprofit boards. Her research focuses on the ecology and conservation of marine species and systems, and development and use of technology for access to the deep sea. Her more than 150 honors and awards include being recognized as Time magazine’s first Hero for the Planet and a Living Legend by the Library of Congress, and awarded the US Department of the Interior Conservation Service Award, the Netherlands’ Most Excellent Order of the Golden Ark, the TED Prize, the Tällberg-SNF- Eliasson Global Leadership Prize, the Princess of Asturias Award for Concord, the World Ecology Award, the National Parks Conservation Association’s Robin W. Winks Award, the Explorers Medal, the Royal Geographical Society Patron’s Medal, and the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal.