Compelled to Protect, continued

More on the women who lead eXXpedition. They have a vision and they are cleaning up the planet. Let me introduce you to some of them!

Soraya Abdel-Hadi, Operations Manager

Soraya is a sustainability professional and advocate for women’s rights, who is passionate about creating a holistic approach to improving our planet. After graduating with a law degree, she worked as an equestrian journalist and then as a marketing manager, before returning to university to achieve her One Planet MBA. This business course with a focus on sustainability cemented her desire to integrate sustainable processes into organizations and demonstrate her values through her own actions. But Soraya believes that there is more to sustainability than the environment, it also encompasses culture and diversity, which is why she focused on women in leadership for her final project.

Sally Earthrowl, Mission Leader

Sally is a Geography teacher and has lived and worked in both inner London schools and a school in Bali, Indonesia. She values the importance and power of education as a key contributor to the sustainable management of global issues. Living in Bali, she saw first-hand the devastating effect and upstream issues around plastic pollution in a developing country. She is hugely passionate about our planet and worked closely with the local community in Bali to educate and raise awareness to bring about change in local waste management systems and behaviours.

This propelled her to want to do more and so she joined eXXpedition for the 2018 North Pacific voyage from Hawaii to Vancouver. As Mission Leader, she is busy ensuring that all missions have a fun, engaging and effective on-board programme. In addition to this, Sally is actively using her experience in the realm of education to take action in raising awareness to change consumer habits and reduce our impact on our planet; She is spreading the word through school talks and motivational speaking, as well as creating education resources.

Winnie Courtene-Jones, Science Lead

Winnie is a marine biologist with a PhD in plastic pollution. She completed her doctoral studies at the Scottish Association for Marine Science where she researched the prevalence and historic occurrence of microplastic pollution in the deep sea ecosystem. Her expert knowledge in this area has led her to attend meetings at UK and European parliament. Winnie is also passionate about communicating science to the public and supporting women in science.

She joined the eXXpedition team in 2019 as Lead Scientist for the Round the World mission. Winnie is based at the University of Plymouth, and is responsible for the design and delivery of the science program, which aims to address fundamental knowledge gaps in our understanding of marine plastics. Winnie will be joining the crew onboard some legs of the voyage.

I will bring you more of these amazing women in the next post. Stay tuned!