National Geographic USA - 03.2020

Ella

Al-Shamahi

Born 1983

Anthropologist

researching Neander-

thals in unstable and

disputed territories

Munazza Alam is searching for the

Earth’s twin. This planet, which would

be cool enough to have liquid water,

is theoretical, but Alam, a graduate

student at the Harvard-Smithsonian

Center for Astrophysics, pores over

telescopic data in hopes of finding it.

Growing up in New York City, Alam

didn’t pay much attention to space.

Then, as a teenager, she saw the Milky

Way for the first time on a trip to the

Kitt Peak National Observatory in

Arizona. Now the atmospheres of

exoplanets are the subject of her

academic fascination.

Entering the field wasn’t easy.

“I am usually the only person who

looks like me in a room full of astron-

omers,” she says. “Since I am some-

times my own worst critic, I have had

to work extra hard to show myself

that I am capable and that I belong

in astronomy.”

One roll of film in a high

school class hooked

Evgenia Arbugaeva,

now an acclaimed

documentarian of the

Russian Arctic. “In

photography I instantly

saw an endless potential

in capturing and telling

stories, the beauty

of total immersion in

the moment and at the

same time creative

control of it,” she says.

MUNAZZA ALAM

Born 1994

Astrophysicist seeking

Earthlike planets

Ella Al-Shamahi digs for

Neanderthal fossils in

Iraq, Yemen, and other

countries. The paleoan-

thropologist–stand-up

comic can laugh off

reactions from those

surprised by a female

scientist working in

conflict zones, but she

worries that a gender

imbalance in her field

dissuades young girls

from entering it. So she

has been on a mission

to highlight accom-

plished women both on

social media and in aca-

demia. “I’m aware I’m a

minority. I’m aware that

I need to represent,”

she says. “At times that

feels like a burden but

one I feel honored to

be burdened with.”

To fully understand

her isolated subjects,

Arbugaeva spends

months or years

absorbed in life on the

tundra. Her projects

include a look at her

Arctic hometown.

“In the field I ask

myself: Have I given the

maximum of myself to

it?” she says. “I try to

reach a point of a clean

conscience about this.”

Evgenia

Arbugaeva

Born 1985

Photographer

exploring life in the

Russian Arctic

If one of us makes it,

we all will. This is a

common saying among

women in El Manglito,

a Mexican fishing

village where biologist

Liliana Gutiérrez works.

“Inside their commu-

nities,” says Gutiérrez,

women “see the whole

picture.” She helped

found an organization

that invests in fishery

restoration in Mexico

and now works with

female leaders to

protect the ocean and

uplift their coastal

towns. “They truly

and deeply under-

stand the connection

between children,

education, and the

health of oceans.”

Liliana

Gutie

,

rrez

Mariscal

Born 1976

Biologist

empowering women

in coastal Mexico

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