DYAN DENAPOLI
Penguin Expert / Author/ TED speaker, The Penguin Lady
American, United States
Dyan deNapoli (AKA The Penguin Lady) is a penguin expert, TED speaker, and author of the award-winning book, The Great Penguin Rescue, which chronicles her experiences helping to manage the rescue of 40,000 penguins from the Treasure oil spill in South Africa. This rescue effort still stands as the largest and most successful animal rescue ever undertaken. She is also the author of a nonfiction book for children titled, All About Penguins.
After working as a Senior Penguin Aquarist at Boston’s New England Aquarium for 9 years, Dyan founded her company, The Penguin Lady, to raise awareness and funding to protect threatened and endangered penguins. She lectures locally and internationally about penguin biology, behavior, and conservation, and donates 20% of the proceeds from her books and from every public appearance to penguin conservation groups.
Dyan is a frequent guest expert on radio, podcasts, and television in the US and abroad, including numerous appearances on BBC Radio. Her favorite gig is working as a Global Perspectives Guest Speaker for Lindblad Expeditions/National Geographic on their ships traveling to Antarctica, South Georgia Island, and the Falkland Islands.
As part of her mission to raise awareness about the many threats to penguins, Dyan wrote and narrated an animated video about penguin conservation for TED-Ed, the educational branch of TED. A four-times TEDx speaker, her combined talks for the TED platform have now had 1 million views online. Her inspiring TED talk about saving 40,000 penguins from the Treasure oil spill can be viewed on www.TED.com.
