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Danielle Alary, 2001
Danielle was certified in 1982. She is an award-winning speaker, writer, photographer and multimedia producer. Danielle is currently an underwater photography columnists for Diver magazine. She has co-authored more than 450 articles. Danielle was the recipient of the Diver of the Year Award for the Arts at Beneath the Sea (in 1995) and has also won the coveted Silver Diver Award at the Antibes World Festival of Underwater Images (in 1997). In addition she chaired the photo jury at the 2000 edition of that prestigious event.
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Renee Steven Applegate, 2003
Renee, a former head nurse, is a PADI Master Instructor with over 26 years of diving experience. She is the owner of Dive Paradise in Cozumel Mexico.
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Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, 2007
Philippines, enacted a national conservation policy for the Philippines to protect the archipelagic country’s unique and rich nature, with initial focus on the heart of Southeast Asia’s Coral Triangle. President Arroyo has taken a visionary step by committing her government to protect the nation’s natural wealth for the benefit of the Filipino people, now and in the future. She recognizes that a healthy environment is the foundation for a stable, productive society that can develop in a sustainable mann er. In 2005, President Arroyo also signed a Proclamation declaring the second week of January of each year as “Best Dives Philippines Week,” promoting scuba diving with an emphasis on protection and conservation of the Philippines’ underwater
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Carole Baldwin, Ph.D., 2003
Carole, a research biologist with the Smithsonian Institute’s Museum of Natural History is an authority on tropical and deep-sea fishes.
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Susan Bangasser, Ph.D, 2000
Susan investigated and wrote articles on the physiological aspects of women divers during the late ‘70s and ‘80s. She co-authored Women Underwater, the first book about women and diving. Her interest in safe diving for women resulted in surveys of divers and promotion of investigation of controversial issues of diving during pregnancy and susceptibility to decompression sickness. Susan also established a support hotline to help resolve issues and concerns for women divers.
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Monique J Bellefeuille, 2002
Monique started diving in 1982 (PADI). She is co-founder of the Ottawa chapter of Save Ontario Shipwrecks and is an active speaker at many US and Canadian scuba shows. Monique has donated thousand of hours to marine archeology research and studies. She has had hundreds of articles published in both Canada and the USA (in French and English). She is founder of several non-profit photo contests. She states “I want to take commercialism out of contests; it is art, ecology, preservation and sharing with others the love of the sea and its inhabitants.”
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Capt. Janet Bieser, 2000
Janet was first certified in 1977. She is a SSI Platinum Pro 5000 diver and is certified as a PADI divemaster (1000 logged dives), an IANTD nitrox diver and an NSS-CDS Apprentice Cave Diver. In 1981 Janet was the first woman to dive the Republic and the second to dive theAndrea Doria. She is an experienced trimix diver, avid spearfisherman, heavy salvage diver, and holds a 100-ton Master Captain’s license. She captains theR/V Wahoo and manages Custom Breathing Media in Rocky Point, NY.
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Carla Binelli, 2004
Carla became certified in 1972 and after retiring as a teacher in 1988 she submerged herself in diving. She is a PADI Master Instructor, DAN & IANTD Instructor Trainer, Educational Manager of Acquamarina Diving School and Vice-President of IANTD Italia-Adria. In 1993 Carla ventured into the technical realm and was instrumental in bringing nitrox, trimix and “tech” diving to Italy and nearby areas. She is certified on oxygen, semi-closed and closed circuit rebreathers. Carla has participated in diving expeditions in the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, Red Sea and Adriatic Sea including that of the battleship “Szent Istvàn”. She has certified more than 1,000 divers & instructors and has logged several thousands of dives. |
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Commander Debra Bodenstedt, 2002
Deb has been a United States Navy diving and salvage officer since 1983. She’s been a commanding officer of a diving unit responsible for underwater ship repair and a diver during the salvage of the space shuttle Challenger. Deb also was the first woman to qualify as a submarine rescue chamber operator and the director of the Atlantic Fleet Diving School. She has dived on the historic USS Monitor at a depth of 240 feet and is a qualified scuba and surface-supplied mixed-gas diver. |
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Rena M. Bonem, Ph.D., 2001
Rena is a professor of geology and biology at Baylor University. Her research centers on the development, human impact, and recovery of living coral reefs. Rena’s diving activities began with certification in 1971, and in 1975 she became an instructor for YMCA and PADI. She chaired the YMCA Coral Reef Specialty in 1977 and has been a member of their National Advisory Committee since 1989. Rena is a fellow of the Geological Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a life member of the American Academy of Underwater Sciences. |
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Mary J. Bonnin, 2001
Mary’s diving career has spanned 24 years and she currently holds the position of Master Chief Petty Officer in the US Navy. After graduating at the top of her class (in both air and mixed gas diving), she went on to become the only woman in the US Navy to qualify as Master Diver. Mary has trained over 1,000 military divers and worked in ships’ husbandry, salvage and rescue. During her last tour she served as the leading naval diving safety authority. The Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington has dedicated their meeting room as the Mary Bonnin room. |
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Dr. Jolie Bookspan, 2000 |
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Georgienne Bradley, 2006
Georgienne Bradley is a noted scientist, artist, photographer, videographer, writer, teacher, and has lent her many talent to the diving community for over a decade. She has produced a variety of television programs about scuba diving for PBS and Paramount studios. Her writing and photography, which focus on diving and marine environmental issues, have appeared in hundreds of articles worldwide. Georgienne is the Founder and Chair person of the America Society of Media Photographers and she owns and operates Bradley Ireland Productions, one of the world’s largest underwater still photography and video stock houses. She is also the Director of the Imaging foundation, a non profit organization that enables travelers and high school and college students to get involved with educational production projects. |
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Jana Bradley, 2000
Jana was certified in 1978 and became a member of the Underwater Society of America and the Midwest Diving Council that same year. She has held offices for a total of 52 different terms on the local, regional and national level. Jana chaired the Freediving/Scuba Nationals in 1990 and published the 40-year history of the MDC in 1999. She is a scuba skills competitor, boat driver for spearfishing competitors and her honors include the MDC Diver of the Year and President’s Award. |
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Tamara Brown, 2000
Tamara began her diving career in 1982. She learned the trade of commercial diving and in 1987 she took over her father’s operation of Divers Academy of the Eastern Seaboard, Inc. (Camden, NJ). Tamara is certified in underwater bridge inspections, ROV operations, non-destructive testing and underwater welding. She is an advocate for commercial diving safety and has assisted writing training standards for such. She is past President of the Association of Commercial Diving Educators. |
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Lucy Bunkley-Williams, Ph.D., 2005
Lucy began diving in 1969, NAUI certified 1975, Hyperbaric Recompression Chamber Operations 1975-82, Deep Diving certification 1979, Saturation/Habitat 1979-84 in 5 week-long missions in NOAA Hydrolab Undersea Habitat in St. Croix, Remote Operated Vehicle 1988, Nitrox certification 1998), Platinum Pro 5000 Diver Award 2005 with 6928 dives. Received MS Univ. Puerto Rico, Mayagüez (UPRM); PhD Auburn Univ. Studied aquatic animal health around the world & documented & explained the most important threats to our coral reefs & marine environment (Coral-reef Bleaching, Sea Turtle Fibropapillomas, diseases & mass mortalities) in 215 scientific publications & 4 books. Named 27 new species of large, external crustacean parasites of fishes seen by divers. She is Professor/Director of the Biology Department, UPRM. Honored as Outstanding Woman Graduate of Auburn Univ. 1992; by Association of Marine Laboratories of the Caribbean by permanently renaming their best student paper award the “Bert & Lucy Williams Award” & Distinguished Service Award 2003 & Honorary Lifetime Membership 2002. Lucy’s underwater photographs have received awards, appeared in numerous books & articles, & were displayed in the Smithsonian Institution. Her research has been featured in television & radio programs, magazines, & newspaper articles. |
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CDR Bette Bush, 2005
CDR Bette Bush has been a Navy Diving Officer since 1988 and since then has excelled as a leader in Navy Diving. She became the fourth women to take command of a Navy Diving and Salvage ship when she became the Commanding Officer of USS SALVOR in 1998 and lead her crew through a 6-month Western Pacific deployment. During that time, the ship salvage two crashed Navy Fighters off the coast of Korea. She then became only the second women to take command of a Navy Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit in 2003. She is a highly decorated Naval Officer and accomplished SCUBA, Surface Supplied Air and Mixed Gas Diver and Salvage Officer. |
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Bonnie J. Cardone, 2000
Bonnie J. Cardone: Certified in 1973, Bonnie wrote more than 900 articles and published thousands of photos during her 22-years with Skin Diver Magazine. She also wrote articles about women diving pioneers for the Historical Diving Society’s magazine and authored two books, Shipwrecks of Southern California and Fireside Diver. Now a freelance photo/journalist, Bonnie’s work appears in dive periodicals. She received the WSA’s Women Diver of the Year Award and St. Brendan Corp.’s California Scuba Service Award and is a member of the California Wreck Divers Hall of Fame. |
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Toni Carrell, 2001
Toni is an underwater archaeologist who has worked on sites from the Great Lakes to the Western Pacific and from World War II to early man. She served as the first woman regional dive officer for the National Park Service and worked with US Navy MDSU divers directing the first archaeological documentation of shipwreck sites in Palau. In 1993 Toni assumed the highest elected position in her field, chair of the Advisory Council on Underwater Archaeology. Recently she directed the excavation of a ship lost by the explorer La Salle in Texas. |
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Jennifer Carter, 2000
Jennifer is the first woman to dive theTitanic and to achieve record-breaking height (skydiving from 12,500 feet) and depth (diving to 12,500 feet). She authored the book Titanic Adventure, produced National Geographic’s The Sharks,The Great Whales (Emmy Award-1978) and IMAX films Across the Sea of Time, Titanica and Mark Twain’s America. Jennifer has done saturation hard-hat diving and has scuba-dived worldwide, including in the search for the legendary monster of Loch Ness. |
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Capt. Victoria Anne Cassano, MD, 2004
Victoria began diving in 1977 and advanced to Instructor certification by 1980. She entered the Navy to attend medical school, while there she became a certified Navy diver and dived with the British saturation diving team while conducting Submarine Escape research. Victoria subsequently trained as an Undersea Medical Officer and became certified in surface supplied and mixed gas diving. She is one of the first women to have qualified for submarine “dolphins”. Victoria has spent her career in “operational undersea medicine”. She is currently Associate Professor at the Uniformed Services University where she runs the graduate training program in Undersea Medicine. |
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Cathryn Castle Whitman, 2001
Cathryn holds instructor ratings from NAUI, PADI, SDI/TDI and DAN. Cathryn has a USCG 100-ton Master captain’s license and is medically qualified as an EMT and hyperbaric chamber tender. Her occupations in the scuba industry have included co-owner of Dive In dive center in the USVI, scuba instructor, boat captain, yacht crewmember, EMT, photojournalist, sales associate for Uwatec USA, and underwater model. In 1997 Cathryn joined the staff of Dive Training Magazine and is currently Executive Editor. In addition, she and her husband Marcus Whitman own Good Fortune Farms in Oregon where they raise alpacas. |
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Cathy Church, 2000
Cathy has been writing about and teaching underwater photography since 1967. She has an MS degree in marine zoology from the University of Hawaii and received the NOGI award in 1987 (arts) and the DEMA Reaching Out Award in 2000. Cathy’s weeklong super courses are offered each summer since 1972, and several times a year she runs underwater photo tours to the South Pacific with her husband Herb Rafael. She has inspired more students to take better pictures than any other teacher in the world. |
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Dr. Eugenie Clark, 2000
Eugenie is an ichthyologist with a special interest in sharks. She has served at great institutions such as Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the New York Zoological Society, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Mote Marine Laboratory. Eugenie has authored three books and over 160 scientific papers, holds three honorary degrees, and has received awards from National Geographic, the Explorers Club and the Underwater Society of America. She is a Senior Research Scientist at the University of Maryland. |
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Cecelia A. Connelly, 2001
Cecelia (mother of 10) was certified in 1972, became an instructor in 1976 and is currently YMCA’s oldest active female instructor. She’s a Gold Star instructor who has trained over 500 student and logged over 1000 hours underwater on 2000+ dives. Her most memorable accomplishments include diving the Andrea Doria, testifying at Gentile vs. NOAA USS Monitor hearings, working with the Atlantic Alliance (Cross Creek, NJ), doing underwater archaeological work in Caesarea, Israel, and helping recover the only intact canal barge in the US. |
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Cindi Courter, 2000
A diver for nearly 20 years, Cindi was the second woman SSI Instructor Trainer worldwide and one of the first 100 Instructor Evaluator/Master Instructors. She’s taught hundreds of young people to dive and educated groups on diving and the underwater environment. Since 1991, she has been the Director of Sponsorship and Development for Divers Alert Network. Cindi is an accomplished underwater photographer with a BFA from Maryland Institute and a Masters from Duke University. |
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Cathie Cush, 2000
Cathie has been scuba diving and sharing her experiences with readers since 1981. Her articles on shipwrecks, scuba diving and ocean-related issues have appeared in Sports Illustrated, Outside, Caribbean Travel & Life, N.J. Monthly, NY Outdoors, Underwater USA, and numerous other publications. She is the author ofShipwrecks. Cathie was certified as a scuba instructor in 1986. She has participated in expeditions to the wrecks of the Andrea Doria and the USS Monitor. |
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Helen T. Davis, 2000
Helen established Medical Seminars, Inc. over 22 years ago to meet the need for physicians to be educated in diving medicine. Because of her efforts there are now more than 5,000 physicians trained to provide medical advice and treatment of diving accidents. Helen has received a NOGI Award for Education and an Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society Award in Education. She continues to enjoy scuba diving in addition to providing seminars for physicians of all specialties. |
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Valerie de la Valdene, 2007
Valerie is an accomplished cinematographer and educator. Noted for filming “Hammerheads: Nomads of the Sea,” she has also been featured on television with Montel William, Jane Pauley, Geraldo, Jim McLaughlin and CNN talking about illegal shark finning. Valerie is currently working on a children’s film for Discovery Channel. She has joined up with Wild Classroom to podcast an educational program on the internet, which is expected to reach over 100 million children. Valerie volunteers at a local school in the Galapagos islands, giving local children an alternative to fishing and finning. |
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Anne Doubilet , 2007
Anne was the only woman in the 1968 SCUBA certification class in Beverly, Mass. Since then she has participated in successful, worldwide diving expeditions that produced National Geographic Magazine articles shot under most of the Earth’s warm and temperate seas: the Red Sea, Papua New Guinea, all around Australia, Hawaii, Palau, Japan, Galapagos, throughout the Caribbean, and the Northeastern Atlantic coast. Return trips over the years to document the disturbing changes have turned Anne into an ardent conservationist, involved in several educational outreach programs. Anne is committed to showing the oceans to the next generation. |
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Sue Drafahl, 2000
Sue is a professional undersea journalist, lecturer and audiovisual producer. She has co-authored over 500 articles that have been featured in numerous dive publications, wildlife/nature publications and photographic publications. Sue has produced DEMA’s Reaching Out Awards Program for 10 years and has participated in film festivals from coast to coast. She is the recipient of the Beneath the Sea Diver of the Year (1996) and a Platinum Pro 5000 Diver with over 25 years of diving experience. |
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Evelyn Bartram Dudas, 2000
Since 1961 Evelyn has been diving the wrecks off the East Coast. She was the first woman to dive the Andrea Doria, one of the first women to use mixed gasses in diving, and also launched her own custom wet suit company when none could be found commercially. After the untimely death of her husband in 1982 she continued to expand Dudas’ Diving Duds into a full service dive facility and raise 4 children on her own. She is an active wreck and cave diver who continues to instruct to this day. |
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Kathleen Dudzinki, Ph.D., 2003
Kathleen, a Researcher-in-Residence at the Mystic Aquarium, has been featured in documentaries, articles and books for her work on dolphin communication. |
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Dr. Sylvia Earle, 2000
Sylvia is a marine biologist, lecturer, consultant, author (including Sea Change & Wild Deep), former Chief Scientist at NOAA, and founder and chairman of Deep Ocean Exploration & Research. She led the first team of women aquanauts in 1970 and holds the record for solo diving to 1,000 meters. She is presently National Geographic’s Explorer in Residence and leader of the Sustainable Sea Expeditions. Sylvia serves on various BODs and holds innumerable degrees, honors and awards. |
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Mary Ellen Eckhoff, 2000
Mary Ellen’s twenty-four year diving career focused on education and cave exploration. She was heavily involved in cave exploration throughout Florida, and joined cave exploration teams in Mexico, Lanzarote, Belize, Turks and Caicos Islands, and other states. She taught NSS-CDS cavern and cave diving courses in Florida. She is a Fellow of the National Speleological Society. Mary Ellen’s professional interests include Learning Disabilities, Adult Education and Literacy. |
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