ALL GIRL crew of polar explorers have chosen a Kendal Collage lecturer to represent Great Britain in the high Arctic.

Sarah Neill, Marine Biologist and Animal Management Lecturer, was selected to join Sedna Epic on an expedition to the High Arctic this coming year. Women are still a minority in polar exploration and the Sedna Epic project provides a safe place for women to conduct fieldwork from Greenland to Alaska.

Kendal Town Council is supporting the expedition through the School of Science and Art Charity, to which it is sole trustee and will be supporting the expedition with an award of £500 from its budget.

Sarah Neill is delighted to be representing this country on the crew. She said: "I am really excited to have been selected to join the team from Sedna Epic on expedition to the High Arctic. I saw the advert and applied in 2019 when I was recovering from meningitis.

" I didn't think anything would come of it, but a few days later the esteemed Susan R Eaton video called me for an interview and here I am!

"We were meant to go in 2020 but the expedition was postponed due to the Covid 19 pandemic. We are now due to depart in November 2021, subject to Covid restrictions.

"Sedna Epic Expeditions, with its all-female crew and inclusion of Inuit team members and cultural advisors, represents a major departure from traditional Arctic expeditions.

"The crew is comprised of an international team of women ocean explorers, scientists, historians, artists, image-makers, educators and scuba divers.

"I have been appointed to co-lead the whale research program for Sedna, so have been busy writing research proposals and putting our whale program together.

"I have also now just received grant funding from Kendal Town Council as well as other organisations.

In a video posted online Sarah said: "“In an Arctic expedition in 2019, the women aboard a mixed sex ship were told to change their dress code, which included a ban on leggings to stop them from being harassed by the men.

“This expedition looks to empower women in science the arts and polar exploration."

Team Sedna will spend a week aboard the MV Freya, snorkelling with Orcas and humpbacks during the winter herring run and undertaking ocean research which includes: the photographic, acoustic and genetic identification of orcas and humpbacks; sea water sampling for environmental DNA.