A Fellow of The Explorers Club, Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Polk is the author of 10 books including award winning Egyptian Mummies (Dutton Penguin, 1998), co -author with Mary Tiegreen Women of Discovery (Clarkson Potter, 2001) and co-editor with Angela Schuster The Looting of the Iraq Museum (2005 Abrams) and is a contributing editor to The Explorers Journal. She lectures frequently and serves on the boards of museums, theater, news and arts organizations. Her photographs have been exhibited widely and she has been published in numerous magazines. Her own explorations have been in the Middle East and Asia ( North Africa, Arabia, Yemen, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Laos, Burma) and more recently in the Arctic and Tibet. Her work focuses on Wings WorldQuest, a nonprofit organization she founded with Leila Hadley Luce to support the work of women explorers. She is creating educational programs to engage young people in science and exploration. Her profile on CBS Sunday Morning “They also Dared’ won a Gracie Award. Her other awards include Leader of the 21st Century from Womens Enews; Environmental Award from Unity College. Polk graduated from the Madeira School and Harvard College. She lectures frequently.

Leila Hadley Luce (1926-2009)