FROM:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-08-26/elen-feuerriegel-the-underground-astronaut/8825148

Four years ago, Dr Elen Feuerriegel was in her first year of a PhD studying human anatomy under the ANU’s Professor Colin Groves, a world renowned paleoanthropologist at The Australian National University.

Trawling the internet she saw an ad. from Professor Berger, a US-born palaeoanthropologist based at the University of Witwatersrand, in South Africa.
It asked for three or four people for a short-term project, but they had to be skinny, preferably small, fit, have some caving experience, a good attitude and be a team player. They could not be claustrophobic.

After an interview on Skype Professor Berger concluded that Elen was a wonderful scientist. “She was doing her PhD in Australia, she had the right measure of risk taking versus safety, knowledge, and she had a great understanding of hominin morphology.”

Also “at only 160 centimetres tall, she was also the right size to squeeze through the tightest of the cracks in the cave.”

Two years later, Professor Berger held a press conference to announce that the team had discovered a new species of ancient human in the caves — Homo naledi, naledi being a star in the Sotho language.

After completing her PhD, which included her research on Homo naledi, Elen moved to University of Washington in Seattle.