CarsonRachel Carson was named by Time magazine one of the top 100 Scientists and Thinkers of the twentieth century. A biologist, writer, and ecologist, she also wrote Under the Sea Wind and Silent Spring, one of the seminal books of the environmental movemnt in America. She was a charter member of the Ecology Hall of Fame. Carl Safina is recipient of the Pew Scholars Award in Conservation and the Environment as well as a John Burroughs Medal. He is also a MacArthur Fellow. Robert D. Ballard is best known for his discovery of deep-sea wrecks such as the Titanic. The president of the Institute for Exploration in Mystic, Connecticut, he led the 1977 expedition that first found life around hydrothermal vents in the sea floor, a major scientific discovery. He is Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society and the Director of the Institute of Archaeological Oceanography. Brian J. Skinner is Professor of Geology and Geophysics at Yale University and a past president of the Geological Society of America. He co-edited The Oxford Companion to the Earth. Read More Read Less