“I never felt so alive, so humble, and so connected to the entire world around me. I had a visceral compulsion to protect this place.”
“The woods were foundational for me,” she says. She spent her childhood observing and catching water striders on the stream flowing next to her home.
“I feel so proud of the work we did for the Ross Sea,” she says. “If it’s the one thing I’ve accomplished, I’ve made a positive contribution for the world. Now, there is this place that exists in Antarctica where we still have a thriving, healthy marine ecosystem with penguins, seals and whales, and fish—they survive against all odds in a place that is protected, and belongs to the entire world.”
“As a woman scientist, in so much research in remote field situations, the power dynamic becomes toxic. I haven’t yet been on a ship where women were in charge,” she says.
In the past, many scientists worried that they wouldn’t be taken seriously if they were vulnerable and enthusiastic. “But we study things because we love them,” Cassandra points out. That passion naturally lends itself to a more vocal role in policymaking.
“I want my children to know they live in a future where the Adélie penguins and the Ross Sea are protected.”