Extraordinary Women Leaders in Speleology (EWLS)

STEPHANIE JAGOU A French/Canadian living in France, Stephanie Jagou is specialized in sustainable development and corporate responsibility. She only started caving in 2013 but in a short two years this activity has become a new venture in her life and she's devoted much of her time to it, in one way or another. Since then she has joined the Caves of Haiti team, is a member of the Association Hommes des Cavernes (Cavemen Association) and has contributed her expertise to the organization and production of the successful mixed-media photographic exhibit of "The Caves of Haiti" at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France, in January 2015. This extraordinary woman has just returned from a caving expedition in Gabon (Africa), the 2015 Abanda Expedition - a follow-up of previous expeditions where orange crocodiles were discovered. During this month-long caving expedition undertaken by a French/Gabonese scientific team of which she was the only female member, she and lead spe...

Amy has been featured in National Geographic's Daily Dozen twice, taken second place in the Balkan Speleological Photo Contest, received First Place in Digital Photography at Hidden Earth (judged by National Geographic photographer Robbie Shone, among others), and free-lances as a cave and adventure photographer. Amy has been interested in photography since she was young. In June of 2010 she visited a cave for the first time and fell in love with the exploration and discovery that caving provides. Being a hobby photographer at the time, she wanted to document her travels but did not wish to risk her expensive dSLR underground. The cave environment with the dust, moisture, and mud, is naturally a camera's worst enemy so she started to develop alternate techniques. She reminds people, "Photography is painting with light. Under the surface of the earth, there is no light." With this theory, she found that cave photography is much more about how one uses light than an...

Some 19,000 years ago, a woman was coated in red ochre and buried in a El Mirón cave in northern Spain. Her cave-grave had a highly unusual ombstone, and archeoligist believe it may have been adorned with flowers. She was buried in a side chamber at the back of the cave and it appears that the many who took shelter for millennia after her death must have been unaware of the prestigious company they were keeping. "It's an area in the cave right where people were living," says Lawrence Guy Straus at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Along with Manuel González Morales of the University of Cantabria, Straus has been leading the excavation of El Mirón for 19 years. "It's not hidden away. This person in death was kind of presiding over the activities of her people." She was between 35 and 40 when she died. Her remains were laid to rest alongside a large engraved stone. "The lines seem to be sort of random, but there is a motif that is a triangl...

Each year EWLS's event requires a strong community of supporters in the caving world and these include men. Without the wonderful help from fathers, sons, and brothers in our caving organizations, EWLS would not exist. Thank you for all that you do and Happy Father's Day! #ewls #womencavers #speleology

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This amazing woman is a cave photographer as well as a contributing photographer for National Geographic. She goes on many adventure photography expeditions. Her work is represented in the book “Women photographers at National Geographic”. She is also an author as well as a photographer, explorer, adventurer, caver and a lecturer. She has 35 year experience in the field and is also a Social Media Reporter for EWLS. SOURCES adventurephotoexpeditions.com ewls.org/carole-devillers.html

Register Now: ewls.org/register-to-attend.htm #AGCT2015 #ewls #womencavers #speleology