With 2026 only hours away, we wanted to share a closer look at everything that WINGS has accomplished this year thanks to your support.
With 2026 only hours away, I wanted to write and share a closer look at everything that WINGS has accomplished this year thanks to your support.
We had a tremendously successful year under challenging circumstances. As you’ve heard, many WINGS Explorers have expressed concerns over funding cuts and how this is impacting the present and future of their groundbreaking work.
Amid this environment, we’ve been especially grateful for the support of our community, which has enabled us to award unrestricted grants to 29 Explorers this year.
Here are a few highlights, the details of which you can find below:
- Awarded four new WINGS Women of Discovery who became part of our global Explorer network; each received an unrestricted $20,000 grant in support of their work
- Funded 25 Flag Carriers across 22 expeditions on six continents (individual grants of up to $2,000, or up to $5,000 for collaborative expeditions)
- Hosted Explorer Talks in New York City, Charleston, SC and Marblehead, MA
- Sponsored the docuseries In Her Nature that aired on PBS Nature
- Partnered with the NYC OceanTech Summit, at which our CEO, Meredith Ayan, was honored to deliver the keynote highlighting the work of WINGS Explorers
- Celebrated the success of many major awards and honors for WINGS Explorers beyond their work with us!
Read on for a deeper dive into all of the above.
As we enter 2026, we’re grateful for your support of WINGS and women in science, conservation, and exploration. We look forward to continuing to partner with you to create a world in which these remarkable women are fully recognized for their tremendous contributions to these disciplines.
2025 WINGS Women of Discovery
This year, we added four incredible new WINGS Fellows to our global network, honoring these Women of Discovery Award winners who are pushing boundaries in science, exploration, and conservation. We celebrated them at our Women of Discovery Awards Gala in October:
- Dr. Yara Barros, a Brazilian conservation biologist who leads the groundbreaking Project Jaguars of Iguaçu, uniting science, community, and partnerships to protect jaguars and ecosystems in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest
- Dr. Divya Karnad, a marine conservationist working on sustainable fisheries in India
- Dr. Nurzhafarina Othman, a conservation scientist and community advocate dedicated to protecting the endangered Bornean elephant in Sabah, Malaysia
- Dr. Grace C. Young, an ocean engineer and explorer advancing marine technology
2025 Flag Carriers
We were also honored to support the following 25 Flag Carriers across 22 expeditions: Krushnaa Patil, Ulfat Haider, Katie Lois Hutchinson, Angeline Mano Matheswaran, Ulyana Pena, Sandra Lai, Kim Frank, Rima Jabado, Katie Conlon, Amanda Brock, Hollis-Ann Stewart, Nora Shawki, Natasha Sekhon, Grace Cordsen, Allie Reichert, Isis Davis, Gaelin Rosenwaks, Paola Bouley, Emily Sperou, Maggie McGreal, Raghda (Didi) El-Behaedi, Karishma Pradhan, Tiffany Duong, Ashley Bugge, and Erica Moulten.
2025 Explorer Talks
Throughout 2025, we hosted three inspiring and educational Explorer Talks across three different US cities:
Dominique Gonçalves at 22 Vanderbilt, NYC
In February, 2023 WINGS Flag Carrier Dr. Dominique Gonçalves presented “Living with Giants: Gorongosa Elephants’ Recovery and Challenges.” Dominique is a Mozambican ecologist who manages the Gorongosa Elephant Ecology Project in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique. Her talk explored the fall and recovery of the elephant population and its impacts in the social-ecological system of one of Africa’s most successful restoration efforts. Dominique conducts long-term monitoring of Gorongosa’s recovering elephant population, looking at their habitat choices and implications for human-elephant conflict and coexistence. WINGS supported a critical component of her assessment and monitoring: the 99 active cameras distributed along areas of high elephant occurrence in the Gorongosa National Park-Zambezi sector.
Anna Cummins at South Carolina Aquarium
In September, 2011 WINGS Fellow Anna Cummins spoke at South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston. Anna is a marine conservationist, environmental educator, and co-founder and Executive Director of 5 Gyres, an organization she launched in 2009 with her husband Dr. Marcus Eriksen to stop plastic pollution through science, education, and advocacy. With 30 years of experience in marine conservation and watershed management, Anna uses vetted research to drive policy campaigns, engage corporations to reduce plastic use, and work with communities for local change.
Callie Veelenturf at the Marblehead Arts Association
Also in September, 2020 Flag Carrier Callie Veelenturf presented “Sea Turtle Conservation and the Rights of Nature” at the Marblehead Arts Association in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Callie is a marine conservation biologist, National Geographic Explorer, and Scientist with the United Nations Harmony with Nature Programme. Through The Leatherback Project, she shared how sea turtle science and the Rights of Nature framework are creating conservation impact across three countries in Latin America.
NYC OceanTech Summit
In June, WINGS served as a proud sponsor of the second-annual NYC OceanTech Summit, which brought together innovators, entrepreneurs, and researchers shaping the future of ocean technology. The event was co-organized by WINGS Associate Board co-chair Caroline Williams, who curated a panel on “Data and the Ocean,” while WINGS Flag Carrier and Associate Board Explorer In Residence Grace Cordsen presented on “The Future of Tourism, Conservation, and Climate Storytelling in the Arctic and Antarctica.” Our CEO, Meredith Ayan, delivered the keynote address, sharing how WINGS supports women scientists, conservationists, and explorers who are developing innovative solutions in OceanTech.
PBS Nature Docuseries: In Her Nature
In case you missed it earlier this year, WINGS partnered with filmmakers Jocelyn Stokes and Katie Schuler on their new docuseries, In Her Nature, which shines a spotlight on the fearless women who protect the wildlife of our world. Featuring breathtaking cinematography combined with rare animal behavior, In Her Nature showcases the robust conservation efforts being led by women in the most perilous habitats through the lens of an award-winning, all-female production team, led by producers Jocelyn Stokes and Katie Schuler. The series premiered on PBS Nature on March 13th.
External Awards for WINGS Explorers
This was also a year in which WINGS Explorers garnered meaningful recognition far beyond our walls. We couldn’t be prouder of the following WINGS Explorers for receiving these honors in 2025:
Whitley Awards: Yara Barros, Farina Othman, and Rahayu Oktaviani
Three out of the seven winners of 2025 Whitley Awards (commonly known as the “Green Oscars”) were WINGS Explorers. Congratulations to 2025 Fellows Dr. Yara Barros for her work protecting jaguars and ecosystems in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, and Dr. Nurzhafarina Othman for her dedication to protecting the endangered Bornean elephant in Sabah, Malaysia, along with 2021 Flag Carrier Rahayu Oktaviani for her work ensuring continuous canopy for the Endangered Javan gibbon on Java, one of the most densely populated islands on earth.
IUCN Tech4Nature Award: Laly Lichtenfeld
African People & Wildlife (APW), co-founded by 2019 WINGS Fellow Dr. Laly Lichtenfeld, received the IUCN Tech4Nature Award in the NatureTech Stewards category. Presented at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi, the award recognized APW’s groundbreaking Sustainable Rangelands Initiative, which combines modern geospatial technology with Indigenous knowledge to support pastoralist communities in northern Tanzania. Through this program, habitat monitors use mobile applications to track pasture health and share real-time data with village leaders. Participating communities have restored over 20,000 acres of degraded land and improved management across 800,000 acres in more than 50 villages.
World Future Policy Award: Callie Veelenturf
2020 WINGS Flag Carrier Callie Veelenturf and her team received a 2025 World Future Policy Award for their groundbreaking work on Panama’s Law 287, which recognizes Nature as a subject of rights, granting legal personhood to forests, rivers, and ecosystems. This visionary legislation places Panama at the forefront of a global movement toward living in harmony with Nature and has already been enforced in high-profile environmental litigation.
Austrian of the Year, Climate Initative: Birgit Sattler
WINGS Fellow Dr. Birgit Sattler was chosen as Austrian of the Year in the Climate Initiative category by the newspaper Die Presse. Birgit is a microbiologist at the University of Innsbruck and Director of the Austrian Polar Research Institute. She heads an international glacier protection program with the goals of protecting glaciers, mitigating the ecological and economic impacts of their melting, and preserving microbial diversity.
McNulty Prize: Krithi Karanth
2019 WINGS Fellow Dr. Krithi K. Karanth, along with her organization Centre for Wildlife Studies (CWS), was named one of this year’s winners of the prestigious John P. McNulty Prize.
As a conservation scientist working to protect biodiversity while empowering the communities living closest to wildlife in India, Krithi is reimagining conservation beyond research alone. Her vision is to “rewild” landscapes while empowering local people as guardians of biodiversity, transforming environmental protection into an economic opportunity and turning conflict zones into models of coexistence.