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Vanessa O’Brien is a British mountaineer and an American mountaineer (as a result of her dual nationality), explorer, aquanaut, author, and public speaker.

Vanessa is the First Woman to Reach Earth’s Highest and Lowest Points, a Guinness World Record she received after summiting Mt. Everest (8,848m) in 2012 and diving in a submersible to the eastern pool of Challenger Deep (10,925m) in 2020.

She became the first American woman to summit K2 and the first British woman to successfully summit K2, receiving Explorer of the Year by the SES for her efforts in 2018. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and an Honorary Advisory Board member of the Scientific Exploration Society (SES).

Vanessa climbed the highest peak on every continent, receiving a Guinness World Record setting a record for the fastest time a woman first achieved this goal (295 days). Vanessa has skied the last 111 km to the South and North Poles completing the Explorers Grand Slam in 11 months, becoming the first woman to do so in under a year and the 8th woman in the world. Vanessa ran the Boston Marathon in 2017, helping to raise money for the American Red Cross, has been shot testing bulletproof clothing at point blank range by Miguel Caballero with a .38 long revolver, and also reached 200 mph riding with Mario Andretti at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2018.