Celebrity Cruises have announced who the Godmother of Celebrity Solstice will be and unusually she is not a star of stage and screen. In fact, she is star of the oceans. Professor Sharon L. Smith, the first ocean scientist ever to serve as Godmother of a cruise ship, will join Celebrity Cruises executives to name the company’s newest and most luxurious addition to the fleet, in formal ceremonies at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
"We are genuinely privileged to have such a remarkable woman serve as Godmother of this remarkable ship," said Richard D. Fain, Chairman of Celebrity Cruises and Chairman and CEO of parent company Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. "Sharon Smith is exceptional in ways well beyond her academic achievements."
A magna cum laude graduate of Colorado College, Smith earned a Ph.D. in Zoology from Duke University, holds two additional honorary doctorate degrees, and a master’s degree from the University of Auckland, where she also was a Fulbright fellow. Smith has traveled the world working as a biological oceanographer in research expeditions ranging from the Polar Regions to the Arabian Sea.
Smith’s career includes 15 years at the prestigious Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York, where she studied coastal ocean environments and the impact of nuclear energy projects. In 1993 she joined the faculty of the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science as a Professor of Marine Biology and Fisheries. Most recently she was named Dean of the Undergraduate Program in Marine Science, and also co-directs the university's Oceans and Human Health Center.
Not only does Smith have incredible professional achievements behind her but she has also overcome cancer twice, in 1993 and again in 1996.
"Women should not feel secure just because there is no family history of the disease," said Smith. "You have to be your own best advocate and insist on what's right for you, because you have to live with the possibility of the disease forever."
Celebrity Solstice is set to embark on its inaugural season on the 23 November, with a series of seven-night Eastern Caribbean cruises. Celebrity Cruises beautiful new ship will make a selection of 10 and 11 night romantic Mediterranean cruises from Rome in spring 2009.
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