Modern Explorer

2018-19 CUSP Distinguished Speaker Series - Cool Jobs

Wednesday, March 13, 2019
6:00–8:00 p.m. 
Davis Auditorium, Schapiro CEPSR

With the tallest peaks climbed and the depths of the ocean reached, what is left to explore? Exploration is no longer about planting your nation’s flag in an uncharted territory or being the first to summit the world’s tallest mountains. Today, exploration is about increasing our knowledge and understanding of the world we live in and using that knowledge to help foster a more sustainable and just future. Sophie will challenge our assumptions and recount her amusing and poignant tales of transitioning from a ballerina to explorer with subsequent adventures/misadventures from the streets of Managua to the mountains of Madagascar.

Biography

Captain Sophie Hollingsworth is a former ballerina turned award-winning explorer using her passion for exploration to help forage a more sustainable future. Sophie is a Fulbright Scholar and earned a Bachelors in Environmental Science and Global Public Health from New York University. Sophie is an avid sailor, has sailed across the Pacific Ocean, and holds a 200-ton captains license. At the time of certification, she was the youngest female to ever obtain a 200-ton MCA Yachtmaster Captains License.

Sophie is the Founder of AquaAid International, a non-profit organization collaborating with some of the world’s most remote villages to design and implement sustainable sources of clean drinking water and basic sanitation. Her appetite for adventure and discovering indigenous ways of life has led her to paddle uncharted rivers in Madagascar, desert treks in Namibia, and ethnographic research in the Republic of Vanuatu. Sophie’s work has been featured by National Geographic and the United Nations. Sophie is a Fellow of The Explorers Club and Post-Graduate Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.