Susan R. Eaton

Born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Susan R. Eaton has lived North of 60 for the past six years. Based in Yellowknife, Susan is a professional geologist and geophysicist registered with NAPEG, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists. Her earth science career has taken her from the Arctic to Antarctica, across Canada and the USA, and to Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Educated in geology, biology, geophysics, and journalism, Susan was elected as a member of the Society of Women Geographers in 2024. She is an inductee of the Women Divers Hall of Fame, a Fellow International of The Explorers Club (TEC), and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS). In 2021, The Explorers Club included Susan in its inaugural TEC Class of 50, Fifty People Changing the World Who You Should Know About. In 2015, the RCGS named Susan one of Canada’s top 100 modern-day explorers and trailblazers. A year later, the RCGS named her one of Canada’s 25 greatest female explorers.

Susan explores the world’s oceans—from the Arctic to Antarctica—in the snorkel zone, a unique land-sea-ice-air interface where charismatic animals and snorkelers commingle. Since 2010, Susan has participated in ten science-based expeditions to study ocean change in the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, Antarctica, Newfoundland, Labrador (Nunatsiavut), Nunavut, Greenland, Arctic Norway, Svalbard, Iceland, and the Sea of the Hebrides. Susan led six of these expeditions under the banner of Sea Women Expeditions (SWX), a volunteer-led social enterprise that she founded twelve years ago to scout, document, and record a warming Arctic Ocean. SWX provides a platform for Indigenous and non-Indigenous women, non-binary, two-spirit, and gender diverse explorers to participate in polar ocean research and dive and snorkel expeditions. 

Susan volunteers with the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary Central and Arctic (Yellowknife Marine Rescue Unit), conducting search and rescue operations on Great Slave Lake, the tenth largest lake in the world and the deepest lake in North America.