Dr. Cindy Lee Van Dover is the Director of the Duke University Marine Laboratory in Beaufort, North Carolina. She is an oceanographer and explorer with an expertise in the ecology of the animals that live at deep-sea hot springs, and she is the only woman ever to qualify and serve as a pilot of the famous research submersible Alvin.

During the twenty years that she has worked in the deep sea, Van Dover has made many discoveries of species and adaptations to life in extreme environments. Her current research includes study of the potential impacts of mining for gold and copper at deep-sea hot springs, characterization of seep communities in Antarctic waters, and exploration for hydrothermal systems in the Caribbean Sea.