UT Dallas neuroscience professor Vanessa Shirazi has a thrill-seeking side hobby. Shirazi spends her free time skydiving and, yes, her students are aware of it.
“Usually, at some point in the semester, I’ll have to mention it somehow. I love it too much. It comes out even if I try not to,” she told WFAA.
Shirazi has been skydiving for a decade, completing nearly 2,000 jumps so far. However, recently, she has accelerated beyond the thrills of skydiving and started seeking out world records to break as well.
A couple of years ago she heard about Project 19, an initiative sponsored by the Women’s Skydiving Network aiming to promote women in the sport of skydiving and “inspire more women around the world to do the things they think they cannot do.”
The network set out to organize a group jump of the best female skydivers from all around the world. Their goal was to break the world record for the largest vertical women’s jump in history. A vertical jump requires freefalling head-first while coordinating with other jumpers to link up and create a mid-air formation while hurdling toward the ground.
The world record was a 65-woman jump set in 2016. With beating that record in mind, a 100-woman vertical jump was scheduled for 2020 to commemorate the 100th-year anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women the right to vote in the U.S.
The project seemed right up Shirazi’s alley, as a combination of skydiving and celebrating women’s suffrage.
However, between Shirazi starting a family and the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, this dream had to be put on hold. By the time the pandemic restrictions started to ease up, she was ready to get back to jumping. After training independently for years, Shirazi and other skydivers from 22 different countries met in the Arizona desert to coordinate their efforts for the big jump. The timing was crucial; the skydivers had about 80 seconds to link up with the others jumping from five different planes.
While they ultimately fell short of the goal of 100, the Project 19 skydivers broke the world record on November 27 with 80 women linking arms in a perfect formation as they fell to the ground at 160 mph.“To do something like this was such an incredible opportunity,” Shirazi said.
Shirazi sees this world record-breaking act as a message to be bold and live a “brave life.”
“Whatever that means to you. Whatever it is that you want, go for it,” Shirazi said.
