PROGRAM GUESTS

MAJOR JACQUELYN S. PARKER, USAF
Jackie Parker attended the University of Central Florida, majoring in mathematics and computer science. She graduated from college at age 17, the youngest graduate in the school's history. Jackie became an intern at NASA's Johnson Space Center, and was responsible for analysis of onboard computer systems. She was the youngest flight controller in NASA's history. After completing Officer Training School in 1980, she entered pilot training at Reese Air Force Base. She received her pilot wings in 1981, later becoming the first female T-38 instructor there. Between 1983 and 1985, she was named "Most Outstanding T-38 Academic Instructor" five times. Jackie transitioned to C-141 transport aircraft and was assigned to the 76th Military Airlift Squadron as an instructor pilot and squadron executive officer. In 1989 she graduated from the Air Force Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base as the first female test pilot in the history of the United States Air Force. She is twice the recipient of the prestigious "Kitty Hawk" Award for achievements in the field of aviation. Major Parker is currently in training as an F-16 fighter pilot at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas.

PROGRAM GUESTS (Cont'd)

JANE GOODALL, Ph.D.
Jane Goodall is the founder and scientific director of the Gombe Stream Research Center in Tanzania, Africa. She was a young and adventurous doctorate student from Cambridge University and a protoge of Dr. Louis Leakey. Jane worked as a waitress to earn money for plane fare to Kenya so that she could fulfill a childhood dream of studying animals. Dr. Goodall eventually set-off into the Africa bush unarmed to observe potentially dangerous apes. Over the past 31 years, she has devoted her life to studying the intricate social behavior of wild chimpanzees (genetically, the closest living relatives of humans), in the longest continuous field study of any living creature. This pioneer naturalist is heralded as "the most influential and renowned primate researcher in the world."

She doesn't look or sound the role, but there's no question about it, Dr. Jane Goodall is a gutsy maverick. Twenty-five years ago, she talked the famed anthropologist, Dr. Louis Leakey, into supporting her in a long-term study of chimpanzees in the wild.

Leakey was criticized then for daring to send a defenseless girl into the harsh African bush, and the scientific community predicted she would not survive more than two days.

"It's ironic how little we've studied our closest living relative in the animal kingdom, and how much knowledge there is to potentially learn about ourselves as human beings," Goodall said a quarter a century ago.

Her National Geographic TV specials and books ["In The Shadow of Man" and "My Friends: The Wild Chimpanzees"] have focused public attention on her beloved great apes. Goodall said that today she's most concerned about learning how child rearing affects subsequent behavior in the adults. So far, her results seem to indicate that human mothers in our culture might take a lesson from the chimpanzees.

". . . I wonder if the odd way we now have of bringing up human primates in the West isn't alsovery traumatic, I think we're denying our babies their natural birth rights. A primate, human or nonhuman, has evolved to expect certain responses. For instance, if the infant cries, it expects to be cuddled. Infants expect devoted mothers, who are there when needed."

Goodall explained that she isn't against the idea o women having careers, but that she is concerned that human babies in the West aren't getting the attention they need.

While in the states, she also will continue organizing a new project called Chimpanzee, a study of captive chimps in which a number of participating zoos will share data via computer and compare their findings with her findings on wild chimps.

"I hope to learn how to make life happier for chimpanzees in zoos," Goodall said. "We still have a lot to learn about captive chimps and the chimpanzees at Gombe. The more we learn about them, the more we may find out about ourselves."

SYLVIA A. EARLE, Ph.D.
Sylvia Earle is one of the most acclaimed oceanographers and marine biologists in the world. She was a bright and curious student who was always fascinated with nature, and spent her time at the sea shore exploring the fields and small creatures. Sylvia graduated from college at age 19 and earned her doctorate at Duke University. In the 1970s she led the first team of woman aquanauts during the trailblazing Tektite Project in the Virgin Islands and went on to hold the world's record for solo diving (3,000 feet). Dr. Earle later advanced deep sea diving in the "Jim suit" when dropped to 1,250 feet, the existing record of an untethered dive. This "explorer of the dark frontier" and "champion of the deep" has logged more than 5,000 hours underwater during some 50 expeditions. She is the recipient of many honors, including the Society of Woman Geographers Gold Medal, the Explorers Club Award, the Charles A. Lindbergh Award, and the Order of the Golden Ark.

Sylvia Alice Earle was born in 1935, in Gibbstown, New Jersey. Though times were tough, their father, Lewis, did have steady employment, as an electrician with Du Pont. His wife, Alice, kept house and looked after the children. When Sylvia was three years old, the family moved to a farm, which turned out to provide an ideal setting for the future biologist.

"We lived in a big brick-and-stone farmhouse that was built before the Revolutionary War," Sylvia told me. "There were lots of wonderful, wild creatures there. We had squirrels and raccoons, and so many birds-the sky was filled with birds, as I haven't seen them since. And I really owe a lot of my interest in wild things to my mother. She just had a natural rapport with the world around her.

Soon after beginning work on her Ph.D., she fell in love with a graduate student in zoology, married him, and suspended her studies. "I had been stuffing my brain with books and lab work for as long as I could remember," she said. "I was still only 21, and I think I was suffering from information overload. I decided that I wanted to go out and do things that were real.

"In the summer of 1964, 1 received an invitation to go on an expedition and it turned out to be one of those things that changed my life forever," she told me. "I was asked to join a scientific team aboard the National Science Foundation's research vessel Anton Bruun, for a six-week voyage to the Indian Ocean and other places. It was not the usual thing for women to go off on expeditions like that in those days. A few other women had done what I was about to do, and had had a terrible time, because they were either harassed or kidded to death. I think the reason that I was able to handle it was that it wasn't the first time I'd been alone, working in a group of men. In fact, I've found throughout my life that there are just about as many advantages as disadvantages in being a woman. Naturally, there have been obstacles. And later in life I learned that the business world can be especially difficult for a woman. But in science, at least, I've often found that the door is open because you're a woman, and they want to give you a special opportunity. Then, of course, it's up to you. You can fall flat on your nose unless you can carry your weight."