CIESIN former director Bob Chen and current director Alex de Sherbinin participated in an American Geographical Society (AGS) globe signing event on 15 September at the Explorer's Club in New York City. Since 1929, AGS has had famous explorers sign a globe that includes tracks depicting the explorer's journeys. Previous signers include Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Sir Edmund Hillary, and Neil Armstrong. This event featured Kathy Sullivan, an astronaut and the first woman to perform a spacewalk, and the first woman to dive into the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of Earth's oceans (>35,000 feet below sea level). Among other major positions, Dr. Sullivan served as the Administrator of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from 2014-2017. Also honored with the AGS's Miller Medal was Charles Trimble, the founder and former CEO of Trimble Navigation, Ltd., a pioneer in global positioning systems (GPS) development. Ubiquitous today, the use of GPS for surveying and navigation emerged in the 1980s and 1990s for civil and military uses.
Drs. Chen and de Sherbinin are AGS Councillors. Founded in 1851, AGS is America's oldest geographical society and is celebrating its 175th year of operation this year.
