As a geologist and geophysicist, Susan has had a successful career in the Canadian energy sector, attaining the position of Vice President of Exploration in several junior energy companies. Known for her business acumen, she’s been listed in the Who’s Who of Canadian Women Directory. Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctica Expedition included both a geologist and geophysicist. One hundred years later, in the spirit of continuing exploration, Susan hopes to follow in their esteemed footsteps. The integration of earth sciences, she believes, is essential to the discussion of global climate change, and to the understanding of its’ impacts on Antarctica and South Georgia. Involved in the grassroots environmental movement since 1990, Susan sits on the board of directors of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to protect at least 50 percent of Canada’s public lands, freshwater and ocean environments. Susan has also undertaken advocacy, policy, media and fundraising activities with San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network, the Calgary Rainforest Action Group, World Wildlife Fund Canada, the Bow Valley Grizzly Bear Alliance, the Canadian Environmental Network, and the Alberta Ecotrust. Susan translates environmental issues into bite-size action steps, empowering people to protect Canada’s wild spaces and the amazing animals who call them home. In recognition of Susan’s environmental leadership, she was selected as an Olympic Torch Relay Runner for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Undeterred by her first open water dives in a February snowstorm in the North Atlantic, Susan received her scuba certification at age sixteen. The highlights of Susan’s dive career have included working as an assistant instructor and co-leading a dive expedition to Cocos Island. Today, Susan is hooked on ‘extreme’ snorkelling around the planet — she’s snorkelled amongst the thousands of beluga whales who congregate every summer, in the sub-Arctic waters of Hudson Bay; she’s assisted the Haida Nation Fisheries Program with its fall salmon research, snorkelling the northern rivers of the Haida Gwaii Archipelago; and she’s snorkelled in the Galapagos Islands where the diversity and abundance of animal life — from the rocky lava shores to the cold ocean waters rich in nutrients — forms a continuum that’s ideal for snorkelers to experience. Susan’s essays about her ‘extreme’ snorkelling adventures describe appropriate and respectful interactions with marine life, and investigate the environmental challenges facing these fragile ecosystems. Susan will be snorkelling, not diving, in Antarctica and South Georgia. And, as far as snorkelling goes, she suspects that Antarctica is as ‘extreme’ as it gets…