Alexandra Cousteau
National Geographic Emerging Explorer Alexandra Cousteau is part of one of the world’s most famous environmental dynasties. She is grand-daughter of legend Jacques-Yves Cousteau who first started teaching her to dive at the age of seven. She left on her first expedition with her father Philippe and mother Jan to Easter Island, Chile when she was just 4 months old.
Today, she takes that rich legacy of environmental advocacy, exploration and storytelling and moves it forward with Blue Legacy, a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit that she founded in 2008 to leverage new and emerging technologies to connect mainstream audiences with their local watersheds and their water planet.
As the visionary behind Blue Legacy’s projects, she advocates the critical importance of managing our water resources sustainably in order to preserve a healthy planet. Her global initiatives seek to inspire and empower individuals to protect not only the ocean and its inhabitants, but also the human communities that rely on the purity of freshwater resources.
As the third-generation of Cousteaus to explore with the National Geographic Society, Alexandra believes that some of the most important exploring we can undertake in the 21st century will take place in our imaginations as we innovate and re-imagine solutions to the pressing environmental issues that confront and define our species today.
