“We launched from Argentina and took a ship to the western peninsula of Antarctica, and for those three weeks we embarked on a series of leadership development programming, as well as 16 landings on different islands and the Antarctic continent," said Melissa Haeffner, a postdoc at Utah State University. She's with a program called iUTAH, which is Innovations in Urban Transitions of Aridregion Hydro-sustainability.
Dr. Haeffner participated in the inaugural Homeward Bound voyage to Antarctica. Homeward Bound is the brainchild of Fabian Dattner, an Australian businesswoman-turned-philanthropist. Dattner wanted to address two issues with her program: the under-representation of women in science, and the changing climate.
“So she decided to use her skills and expertise in leadership development to bring women together to talk about climate change,” Haeffner said.
In Fabian Dattner’s vision, this was the first of 10 Antarctic voyages that will eventually bring together 1000 women in science. Almost 80 women lived and worked together for three weeks last December, during the Antarctic summer. These women are experts in their fields, and bring together multiple different disciplines to tackle these global challenges from all angles. As a sociologist with iUTAH, Dr. Haeffner brought her expertise of working with people in changing hydrological regimes.
Dr. Haeffner used crowdfunding to pay for this trip, an increasingly popular way to finance research.
“We also were able to visit the British post office and send post cards to all of our funders [laughs] who helped us put together this first trip,” said Haeffner.