Dr. Sada Mireโs newly named National Geographic Explorers represent the next generation of influential leaders, communicators, and innovators.
Dr. Sada is a Swedish Somali woman of Somaliland origin, and she is the second woman from Somaliland to win an international award this year.
The National Geographic Society Announces the 2023 Wayfinder Award Recipients.Among the yearโs recipients is Dr Sada Mire, a Somaliland-born archeologist whose scholarly works have shed much light on Somali and Horn of Africa ancient civilizations.
Their groundbreaking work covers a vast array of impact-driven projects including connecting youth to the ocean, using innovative technology to track insects across landscapes, investigating critical environmental stories, and developing equitable conservation solutions for poor communities.
โOn behalf of the National Geographic Society, weโre proud to name these 15 trailblazers as 2023 Wayfinder Award recipients for their exceptional contributions on a local and global scale,โ said Alexander Moen, chief explorer engagement officer at the National Geographic Society. โWeโre thrilled to celebrate each of these individuals at Base Camp headquarters in June for our annual Explorers Festival where weโll recognize their remarkable achievements that bring our mission to life.โ
The Wayfinder Award recipients join the Societyโs global community of National Geographic Explorers and each receive a monetary prize to support their work.
Meet these audacious Explorers:
Dr. Sada Mireย is a Somali archaeologist, art historian, science communicator, and presenter. She fled Somalia as a refugee, becoming a Swedish citizen, and holds a Ph.D. from University College Londonโs Institute of Archaeology, where she is serving as Associateย Professor of Heritage Studies.
Mire is the first Somali woman to study archaeology, and for over a decade she was the only trained Somali archaeologist working in Somalia and Somaliland. Mire and her team carried out and published the first and most comprehensive mapping of Somalilandโs archaeology and is the founding director of its Department of Archaeology.
She is also a cultural theorist who believes we need culture in times of war, as articulated in her TED Talk โCultural heritage: a basic human need.โ In 2021, with her book Divine Fertility, she became the first archaeologist of non-European descent to win the SAfA Book Prize. Mireโs other honors include being selected by the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts for their 30 Global Writers and Thinkers for 2017-2027 and the New Scientist magazine list of the Most Inspiring Women in Science of All Time. She is the founding director of Horn Heritage Foundation and its Digital Museum, working on research and conservation of heritage across the Horn of Africa.
Mireโs work regularly appears in international broadcast media with her as a presenter, writer, or subject, including in The Guardian, CNN, Current World Archaeology, National Geographic, Vanity Fair Magazine, Channel 4, Futura Channel, the BBC, The Sunday Times, and New Scientist.