Jean Pennycook is an American educator and zoologist specializing in Antarctic Adélie penguins.[1] She is based in Cape Royds, an Antarctic Specially Protected Area which hosts a stable population of Adélie penguins.[2][3]
Jean Pennycook is an American educator and zoologist specializing in Antarctic Adélie penguins.[1] She is based in Cape Royds, an Antarctic Specially Protected Area which hosts a stable population of Adélie penguins.[2][3]
Pennycook first came to Antarctica in 1999 as part of a team from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, who were researching Mount Erebus, a volcano on Ross Island.[4] She publicized scientific research in Antarctica using several science outreach methods, including online journal entries and postcards, video conferences with schoolchildren, and a documentary about the effect of climate change on penguins.[4][5] Pennycook and her fellow researcher David Ainley run an educational website, Penguin Science, which summarizes the research team's work and aims to attract future scientists to the field.[6][7] Pennycook has supervised interns in the Polar Internship Program, which aims to enable students of underrepresented racial or social groups to visit Antarctica and become familiarized with Antarctic scientific research.[7][8]
Pennycook created an outreach project where schoolchildren could send personalized postcards with drawings of penguins sent to her, which would then be returned with an Antarctic postmark.[2][7] Schools also have the option of designing a class flag to be flown in Antarctica, which can subsequently be viewed through a live penguin webcam on the research team's website.[6][9]
