Shawna Pandya
Dr. Shawna Pandya is a physician, scientist-astronaut candidate program graduate with the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences/Project PoSSUM, aquanaut, speaker, martial artist, advanced diver, skydiver, pilot-in-training, VP Immersive Medicine with Luxsonic Technologies, Director of Medical Research at Orbital Assembly Construction, and Fellow of the Explorers’ Club. She is also Director of the International Institute of Astronautical Sciences (IIAS)/PoSSUM Space Medicine Group, Chief Instructor of the IIAS/PoSSUM Operational Space Medicine course, a clinical lecturer at the University of Alberta, podcast host with the World Extreme Medicine’s WEMCast series, Primary Investigator (PI) for the Shad Canada-Blue Origin student microgravity competition, member of the ASCEND 2021 Guiding Coalition, and Life Sciences Team Lead for the Association of Spaceflight Professionals. She serves as a medical advisor to several space, medical and technology companies. Dr. Pandya was part of the first crew to test a commercial spacesuit in zero-gravity in 2015. She earned her aquanaut designation during the 2019 NEPTUNE (Nautical Experiments in Physiology, Technology and Underwater Exploration) mission. She previously served as Commander during a 2020 tour at the Mars Desert Research Station. In 2021, Dr. Pandya was granted an Honorary Fellowship in Extreme and Wilderness Medicine by the World Extreme Medicine organization and named one of the Women’s Executive Network’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada, as well as a Canadian Space Agency Space Ambassador. Her career and trajectory have been captured at the Ontario Science Center’s “Canadian Women in Space,” exhibit, alongside Dr. Roberta Bondar, the first Canadian woman in space (and Dr. Pandya’s idol growing up).
3 words to describe Nature?
Vast. Inspiring. Infinite
3 things Nature taught you?
To be in the moment
To be prepared
That everything else can wait
3 most treasured Nature spots?
The Canadian Rockies
Hapuna Beach, Kona, Hawaii
The sunset over the pond behind my parents' house
When you look at the OCEAN, it makes you feel...?
At peace, knowing that I am one tiny part of infinity.
When you see a FOREST, it makes you feel...?
Like I am at the start of an adventure.
When you see a VOLCANO, it makes you feel...?
Full of awe at nature's power.
When you see a SUNRISE or SUNSET, it makes you feel...?
Grateful and satisfied to be able to have that moment to appreciate.
When you hear THUNDER, it makes you feel...?
Excited for the subsequent storm.
When you hear the WIND HOWLING, it makes you feel...?
Like I am in a mystery or adventure novel!
Are you an OCEAN, MOUNTAIN, FOREST, or DESERT person?
All of the above
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
When I was 14, we went on a survival camp. My best friend and I were only 2 of a handful of girls in a class of over 35. We proudly built and slept in one of the best lean-tos, and managed to keep a fire going all night. We also went caving on that same trip!
Aaron Olivera
Aaron Olivera is the Founder and CEO of Earth 300, a global environmental multidisciplinary initiative incorporating a 300 meter super science vessel for research, exploration, and innovation at sea. Equipped with 22 states of the art labs and frontier technologies such as AI, Robotics, and quantum capabilities, a team of 160 scientists from different fields, will work together on climate science, ecosystem restoration, and planetary stewardship. Marrying science, technology, adventure, exploration, and education, Earth 300’s mission is to ring the climate alarm on a global scale and inspire the greatest and largest climate action effort in history.
Aaron was instrumental in the launching of the world’s first Porsche Design megayacht Catamaran – the famed 41 meter RFF-135, helping secure the financing needed to develop it and launch it with a hospitality package that forms part of a timesharing program aimed at reducing the ecological footprint of the UHNW community.
Aaron lives in Singapore but spends half of his time traveling. He is a member of the invite-only Monaco Private Label presided by Prince Albert II of Monaco, and of The Explorers Club (NYC).
3 words to describe Nature?
Astonishing. Miraculous. Alien.
3 things Nature taught you?
Humility
Fragility
Abundance
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Beach
Ocean
Ancient Forest
When you look at the OCEAN, it makes you feel...?
Wondrous
When you see a FOREST, it makes you feel...?
Foolish
When you see a VOLCANO, it makes you feel...?
Ashamed
When you see a SUNRISE or SUNSET, it makes you feel...?
Loved
When you hear THUNDER, it makes you feel...?
Redeemed
When you hear the WIND HOWLING, it makes you feel...?
Scared
Are you an OCEAN, MOUNTAIN, FOREST, or DESERT person?
Depends on the season
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
Going to the beach early with my father and diving into large waves. Feeling fragile and strong at the same time, that sense of lack of control and yet able to bounce back.
Enric Sala
photo credit Manu San Félix
Dr. Enric Sala is a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence dedicated to restoring the health and productivity of the ocean. His more than 120 scientific publications are widely recognized and used for real-world conservation efforts such as the creation of marine reserves. Enric is currently working to help protect the last pristine marine ecosystems worldwide, and to develop new business models for marine conservation. He founded and leads National Geographic’s Pristine Seas, a project that combines exploration, research, and media to inspire country leaders to protect the last wild places in the ocean. To date, Pristine Seas has helped to create 13 of the largest marine reserves on the planet, covering an area of over 4.5 million square kilometers.
Enric has received many awards including 2008 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, 2013 Research Award from the Spanish Geographical Society, 2013 Lowell Thomas Award from the Explorers Club, and a 2013 Hero Award from the Environmental Media Association. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Enric’s experience and scientific expertise contributes to his service on advisory boards of international organizations and governments.
3 words to describe Nature?
Life. Support. System
3 things Nature taught you?
Magic
Wonder
Purpose
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Millennium Atoll (Kiribati)
Volcanoes National Park (Rwanda)
Any ancient forest
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Infinite
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Blessed
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Amazed
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Alive
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Humble
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
It depends if I’m on land or at sea! I prefer not to hear that when I’m at sea.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
All of them, even though my work has been mostly on oceans
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
First time I saw a starfish in the Mediterranean of my childhood while I was doing my first attempts at snorkeling. It was the most beautiful thing I saw, and memory that still lives with me.
Wallace J Nichols
Dr. Wallace "J" Nichols - called a “Keeper of the Sea" by GQ Magazine, “a visionary" by Outside Magazine, a "water warrior" by AQUATICS International and a "friend of the sea" by Experience Life Magazine - is an innovative, silo-busting, entrepreneurial scientist, movement maker, renown marine biologist, voracious Earth and idea explorer, wild water advocate, bestselling author, sought after lecturer, and fun-loving Dad. He also likes turtles (a lot).
In 2010 Nichols delivered the commencement address at DePauw University where he also received an honorary doctorate in science. In 2011 he was inducted as a Fellow National member of the Explorers Club. In 2014 he received the University of Arizona's Global Achievement Award. And in 2017, he was presented by Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama the Champion of Change Award at the World Oceans Festival on Governor’s Island, New York.
Nichols has authored more than 200 scientific papers, technical reports, book chapters, and popular publications; lectured in more than 30 countries and nearly all 50 states; and appeared in hundreds of print, film, radio, and television media outlets including NPR, BBC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, National Geographic, Animal Planet, Time, Newsweek, GQ, Outside Magazine, USA Today, Elle, Vogue, Fast Company, Surfer Magazine, Scientific American, and New Scientist, among many others.
His book Blue Mind, published in summer 2014 by Little, Brown & Company, quickly became a national bestseller and has been translated to numerous languages and inspired a wave of media and practical application.
J. is currently Chief Evangelist for Water (CEH2O) at Bouy Labs, a Senior Fellow at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies' Center for the Blue Economy, a Research Associate at California Academy of Sciences and co-founder of Ocean Revolution, an international network of young ocean advocates, SEE the WILD, a conservation travel network, Grupo Tortuguero, an international sea turtle conservation network, and Blue Mind a global "movement of movements" sharing the new story of water.
He co-mentors a motivated group of international graduate students and serves as an advisor to numerous non-profit boards and committees as part of his commitment to building a more creative, stronger, more progressive, and connected environmental community.
J. lives with his partner Dana, two daughters and some cats, dogs, and chickens on California's Slow Coast, a rural stretch of coastal mountains overlooking the Monterey Bay where organic strawberries rule, mountain lions roam and their motto is "In Slow We Trust". The Nichols chose to settle down in this area after trekking the entire 1,800 kilometer coast from Oregon to Mexico.
3 words to describe Nature?
Primal. Creative. Home
3 things Nature taught you?
Humility
Solitude
Confidence
3 most treasured Nature spots?
50 miles offshore and 50 feet deep from Bahia Magdalena, BCS Mexico
The source of Mill Creek in the Santa Cruz Mountains
Greyhound Rock
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Optimistic
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Connected
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Awe
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Hopeful
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Warm
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Nostalgic
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Yes on all!
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
11
Share with us a childhood nature memory.
Backpacking to Deep Lake, in Wyoming, when I was 11 and feeling like I wanted to feel that way a lot more throughout my life. The origins of “blue mind” research, practice, philosophy and the growing global movement.
Arita Baaijens
ARITA BAAIJENS is an explorer, biologist, photographer and writer. She is forever curious about the world and explores both physical landscapes and Mindscapes, those last remaining white spots on the world map that Google Earth is not able to find. Fellow Explorers Club, Royal Geographical Society and WINGS Worldquest, who selected her for the Wings Humanities Award 2014. She has completed over 25 desert expeditions on camel throughout Egypt and Sudan. She is the first woman to have crossed the Western Desert of Egypt solo on camel and the first Western woman to travel the Forty Days Road on camel twice. In Mauritania she photographed the last surviving female caravaneers. Currently Arita Baaijens travels and works in Siberia and Papua New Guinea, to research traditional cultures and sacred landscapes at risk. In 2013 she was the first to circumambulate the Altai Golden Mountains in the heart of Eurasia: 4 countries, 101 days, 1500 km on horseback. In March 2015 the Spanisch Geographical Society honored Arita Baaijens as Traveler of the year. She proudly carried the WINGS flag twice.
Baaijens is a pioneer, innovator and connector. She uses deep mapping and story telling to open people’s minds to different possibilities of explaining the world.
Arita Baaijens has produced radio documentaries, a virtual reality film (2016) and video dispatches about her travels. She has published numerous features about her journeys (see attachments) and to date has published seven books, including the award-winning Desert Songs: A Woman Explorer in Egypt and Sudan (AUC Press 2008). She is one of 50 explorers portrayed in “Modern Explorers” (2013, Thames and Hudson). Her book Looking for Paradise (Atlas Contact, 2016) was short listed for the prestigious Dutch Jan Wolkers Award. Baaijens' photographic work has been exhibited in museums and gallery's in England, Sudan, Egypt and the Netherlands. Her 2016 exhibit Search for Paradise in the Ketelfactory Gallery, Netherlands, drew many visitors and caught the attention of the media. It included photography, film, soundscape, a deep map and public lectures. Baaijens is in demand as a speaker both in the Netherlands and abroad, and has presented two TEDxtalks. She is a regular speaker on television and radio. 100+ interviews in magazines and newspapers.
3 words to describe Nature?
Miraculous, Resilient, Omnipresent
3 things Nature taught you?
Joy. The meaning of the word Sublime. Also: We need nature, but nature doesn't need us.
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Treasured spots are always Nature spots! The first spot that comes to mind is a lonely and incredibly beautiful and also terrifying spot in the Western Desert of Egypt. It's an 'eagles nest', an outcrop on the edge of a steep and endless limestone cliff. At this spot the surface falls away on all sides but one, the view is incredible. Behind me empty desert, chalk hills, loneliness. And far below sanddunes wherever the eye turns. Incredible, the sand stretches further than the horizon, all the way into Libya. Spectacular, the spot is a strange and horrifying beauty. I have always felt that this is what our planet must have looked like in the days that man was not yet born. Untouched. Scary also, because my water was almost finished when I reached this sport and if I could not find a safe way down the steep cliff that would have been the end of me and my camels .
Second place that comes to mind is the Ukok plateau in south-west Siberia, the Altai Mountains. A very lonely and remote spot, an iconic and sacred glacier valley surrounded by high mountain peaks covered with ice and snow. It is right on the border with Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan. Rivers are being born there! Rivers that carry water for 7000 km north to the Arctic Sea. 9 months of the year it is impossible to be there, too cold, too windy, too dangerous. In the summer months the top layer of the frozen soil melts, which creates small streams and dangerous swamps. Many beautiful lakes. View of mountains, tundra and clouds is majestic. Genesis all over!
the Third spot is my garden and tiny hobbit house in the country side. I couldn't live in Amsterdam if it weren't for this tiny refuge in the country side. It is a strange place, a green oasis tucked away between a high way and the biggest petrochemical industry area in the Netherlands. And yet, the green oasis which is part of very old agricultral land has survived and I feel extremely grateful whenever I go there.
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
To be honest, Oceans don't attract me very much. I do like to scuba dive in the Red Sea, it always reminds me of my time in the mother womb. Safe, warm, nourishing, beautiful. If I meet the ocean standing on the beach then something funny happens. 'I' stop to exist, 'it' expands, I am the waves and all it contains. I guess the oceans are the alpha & omega of all that is. I wished scientitsts and researchers would leave the depths of the ocean alone. Allow the ocean to keep its secrets, give it privacy! As an explorer I much prefer to stay on land.
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
The forest, strangely enough, is also not my favorite environment. Claustrofobic, I need empty spaces, views in 360 degrees. Which doesn't mean that I don't love forests, I do! Trees are my friends. They supply oxygen, literraly and figuratively speaking.
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Wow!! Here are forces at work that we humans don't control. Volcanos keep us in check and remind us of our hubris
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Since I became a desert explorer I learned about the power and the magic of a sunrise and a sunset. And I completely understood why the ancient Egyptians worshipped Ra, the sun god. In the desert I would wake up 2 hours before sun rise, feed the camels, eat breakfast, load the camels and go. That first hour of walking with the camels, pure bliss. As soon as the sun announced its arrival and the first sliver appeared above the horizon I knew that within two hours she would make me suffer. But I always welcomed her with a song (it was no conscious decision to sing, it just happened): 'Here comes the sun,' na na na, etc The sun creates the day and brings life. Then, after a long and hard day walking in the heat, I again enjoyed the last hours of day light and would watch, with relief, shadows appear. Those wonderful shadows recreated the 3D world that had disappeared between 9 am till 3 pm. I never ever would miss the spectacle of the sun saying good bye, I would watch in silence how the world I knew would come to an end. After the last sliver of red had fallen of off the earth (that's how it felt) the sun would set the clouds on fire before it finally disappeared. She left me the moon, the stars and sometimes complete darkness. Nighttime. 10 hours of blissful sleep!
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Alive and in awe, the gods are speaking!
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Hard to describe, it is a mix of awe, joy, feeling extremely alive and alert, and yet infinitely small, just the way I like to feel.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Empty spaces: desert, steppe, tundra, you name it. As long as it is untouched and vast and dangerous for humans
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I grew up near a huge forest. We would go there on Sundays, my parents on their bicycles, my brother and I on the back seat. We would bring snacks, lemonade, sweets. I would disappear in the forest. Trees were pillars of my castle. Moss was the softest carpet imaginable. Dew drops were jewels. It was so quiet! Of course the birds sang and the insects buzzed. But the play of light and shadow, those high trees... created a solemn atmosphere. I would choose a big stone that was covered with soft moss and grass: my throne. And I of course was Alice in Wonderland.
Michele Benoy-Westmorland
MICHELE BENOY-WESTMORLAND is a freelance photographer represented by Getty, Corbis, and other major agencies. She is a Fellow with the International League of Conservation Photographers and The Explorers Club. In 2001 she was inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame. In 2015, she received the NANPA Fellows Award. She has won several awards, including the Environmental Photography Invitational, Photo District News, and the PNG Underwater Photo Competition. Her work has appeared in Outside Magazine, National Geographic Traveler, Outdoor Photographer, Scuba Diving, and many other conservation, outdoor, and underwater magazines. She is currently directing her first documentary “Headhunt Revisited”, the story of Caroline Mytinger, an American portrait painter best known for her paintings of indigenous people in the South Seas during the late 1920s.
3 words to describe Nature?
Awakening, spiritual, renewing
3 things Nature taught you?
Humbleness, respect, patience
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea; Cape Nelson, Papua New Guinea; the mountains & forests of the Pacific Northwest
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
You now are asking the right person! Peaceful, joyful and sometimes sadness in respect to the condition of our ocean environment
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
I feel much the same about the forests as I do the oceans.
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Awe, amazement, admiration
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Joyful, thankful, restful
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Amazement, wonderment, sometime surprised with a touch of fear
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel?
Since I lived in Miami during Hurricane Andrew, howling winds always make me feel a little stressed and careful about being outdoors.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Ocean
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
9
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
Spending time camping in beautiful forests with my family