Catherine Musemeche > Quotes

“There was an irony in Vogt’s invitation to Sears. While she was an undisputed authority on plankton, she had managed to achieve this status without ever once going on an overnight seafaring expedition. At Woods Hole in Massachusetts, where Sears had trained as one of the first ten research fellows at the institution and had been a member of the staff ever since, women were not allowed to sail on the institution’s research vessel Atlantis.”
― Catherine Musemeche, Lethal Tides: Mary Sears and the Marine Scientists Who Helped Win World War II – A Groundbreaking Biography of Oceanographic Intelligence

“The supply of Peruvian guano, a lucrative resource for the country and considered some of the finest fertilizer worldwide, was under threat. Sears was one of the few people who could help save it.”
― Catherine Musemeche, Lethal Tides: Mary Sears and the Marine Scientists Who Helped Win World War II – A Groundbreaking Biography of Oceanographic Intelligence

“More importantly to Sears though was what she had proven to herself and to anyone else who dared to question her skills. A woman could hold her own on a multiday expedition, even one that took place entirely in another country during wartime, alongside a crew with whom she shared a bathroom but not a common language. She had found a way to get her fieldwork done and withstood the primitive conditions aboard ship.”
― Catherine Musemeche, Lethal Tides: Mary Sears and the Marine Scientists Who Helped Win World War II – A Groundbreaking Biography of Oceanographic Intelligence