Susan Lee Hendrickson, 2005 Women of Discovery Humanity Award

""Be curious and presistent. Know that you have no limits and follow your passions."" — Susan Lee Hendrickson

Marine Archeologist, field paleontologist, professional diver

Born: 1949-01-01

Hometown: Chicago, Illinois

Education: Honorary PhD, University of Chicago

Achievements

Discoveries: The best shipwreck discovery of my life was the "San Diego," a Spanish shipwreck. The best land site discovery was Heracleopolis, sunken city of the Hercules. And, discovering Tyrannosaurus Sue!

Expeditions: Diving- Dominican Republic, Bahamas, Cuba, Honduras, Egypt, Peru and Philippines. Paleontology- Morocco, Peru, Western US, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Chile and Canada.

Biography

Sue Hendrickson is an independent explorer who is searching for clues relating to ancient life. She dives on ancient wrecks off the Philippine Islands and Cuba, and the submerged ancient city of Herakleon in Egypt. Sue hunts for fossil whales in the windswept deserts of Peru and searches for dinosaurs in Wyoming. She is best known for finding the largest Tyrannosaurus rex ever discovered, that has been named "Sue" in her honor and is presently displayed at the Field Museum of Chicago. Hendrickson's interests have also focused on searching for unusual amber and conch pearls which have been included in the museum exhibits "Pearls" and "Amber."

Sue has worked as a professional diver since 1971, from collecting tropical fish for aquariums, to modern salvage, diving for lobster, collecting shells, and many years of underwater archaeology. She was also the foreign liaison for Carisub, the national Cuban Marine Archaeologists. She is a member of the Explorers' Club in New York, the Society for Historical Archeology and the Paleontological Society. She is also a museum consultant in paleontology and a specialist in the fieldwork of paleontology and the fossil inclusions in amber from the Dominican Republic and Chiapas, Mexico. "I do this type of work, like my other passions, mainly because I'm like a child who never grew up. I love to look for and find things. The thrill of discovery is a real emotion, like a 'rush;' the excitement is worth the days or months of hard work and keeps me going on and on, looking for more. I've been very lucky in my life to be able to follow what I wanted to do. Like the others, I do this because it's great! To try to rationalize the reason for following this career (and the paleontology fieldwork), it is to further education, knowing the past is important, but really I just selfishly love this work." (From Franck Goddio Society online biography.)

Fun Facts