Longtime scuba diver and shipwreck research/writer, Joan Forsberg, of West Chicago, Illinois, will be inducted into the 165-member International Women Divers Hall of Fame at Beneath The Sea, the annual New York City Scuba Show, in Secaucus, NJ, on Saturday, March 27, 2010.

She is one of only ten women from around the world being honored this year with this prestigious membership as part of the tenth anniversary of the Women Divers Hall of Fame, and she is the only one from the Great Lakes region and the only on whose main work focuses on shipwrecks.

Her biography features many highlights that inspired her upcoming induction:

Joan Forsberg studies and researches shipwrecks, and promotes shipwreck diving and conservation through her magazine articles, books, underwater videography, film productions, presentations to a wide variety of audiences, and her work as Shipwreck Chairman of Our World—Underwater, the huge Scuba Show held annually in Chicago. She has been the President of a maritime book publishing company since 1998. She was the first woman to be published in the international publication Wreck Diving Magazine (for which she now works as Copy Editor). President of the Underwater Archaeological Society of Chicago for an unprecedented three terms, she is spearheading research and/or survey work on 35 shipwrecks. She is the co-author of the book Shipwreck’s at Death’s Door, about maritime disasters on Lake Michigan, and the author of Diver’s Guide to the Kitchen (she herself is an accomplished cook). She is one of the first US women with formal training in underwater archaeology from Great Britain’s Nautical Archaeology Society (AS), even becoming an NAS tutor’s assistant.

For more information or for an interview, please call (630) 293-8996, or email SeawolfRex@aol.com

Also visit the Women Divers Hall of Fame web site at www.wdhof.org