Unsung heroes of the year 2023

From Taylor Swift to Lionel Messi, some big names have attracted their fair share of headlines this year, but there have also been some remarkable achievements from people who are a little less well-known.

The Week takes a look at 2023's unsung heroes. 

Ava DuVernay

The Oscar-nominated director made history this year by becoming the first African American woman to have a film entered at the Venice Film Festival in its 91-year history.

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DuVernay's short film "Origin", which explores racism in the United States, premiered at the Italian film festival in September. During a news conference for the film she told Variety: "For Black film-makers, we're told that people who love films in other parts of the world don't care about our stories and don’t care about our films. This is something that we are often told: you cannot play international film festivals, no one will come." 

DuVernay revealed she had been discouraged from applying for the film festival because of its history. "And this year, something happened that hadn't happened in eight decades before: an African American woman in competition. So now that's a door open that I trust and hope the festival will keep open," she said.

Nigar Shaji

The aerospace engineer was the project manager behind the Indian space agency's first ever mission to the Sun. 

Launched in September, the Aditya-L1 spacecraft is a ground-breaking probe dedicated to studying the Sun's atmosphere and surface. The data it collects "could help solve lingering solar mysteries" such as why the Sun's atmosphere is "considerably hotter" than its surface, said Space.com. The mission has already had success, capturing its "first glimpse" of a solar flare in early November. 

As project manager, Shaji was the "mastermind" behind the mission, said Mashable. The 59-year-old scientist has been part of  the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for 35 years. She told the news site that the successful launch of the spacecraft was "a dream come true".

Britney Schmidt and Peter Davis

Cornell University's Britney Schmidt and the British Antarctic Survey's Peter Davis are the authors of a major new paper on the melting of the vast Thwaites Glacier, which is about the size of Florida, in the Antarctic Ocean. 

The collapse of the Thwaites Glacier would mean a global sea level rise of up to two feet, "enough to wipe out many coastal cities", said Time. Schmidt and Davis used "a hot-water drill and a camera-enabled underwater robot" to be able to "look at the glacier's underside to better understand how, and how fast, it was melting". 

The research, published in the journal Nature, has given us a better understanding of glacier de-formation. "When you don’t understand how a process is happening, you can't hope to forecast it," Schmidt told Time. "Observing Thwaites in detail gives us a chance to make better choices for our future based on what we know is happening today."

Rob and Lindsey Burrow, and Kevin Sinfield 

Rugby league icon Rob Burrow, his wife Lindsey and his best friend and former team-mate Kevin Sinfield have all received a Pride of Britain award for their fundraising efforts for motor neurone disease (MND).

Since Burrow's MND diagnosis in 2019, the trio have raised millions for research through fundraising events, including the recent Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon, in which over 12,000 runners participated to raise money for the Rob Burrow Centre for Motor Neurone Disease Appeal and the Leeds Hospitals Charity.

In a poignant moment, Sinfield pushed Burrow around the 26.2-mile course until the very end, "when, to rapturous applause, he lifted his friend out of his wheelchair and carried him over the finish line", said ITV News.

Sinfield told the broadcaster: "We wanted to finish together. The marathon was built on friends running for a mate with a mate."

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema achieved "one of the decade's biggest environmental wins", said Time – an agreement to conserve or restore nature on 30% of the world's lands and waters by 2030. 

The former executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity for the United Nations, Mrema "shepherded the deal, overcoming vast differences among 195 countries' negotiators", the magazine said. Although not legally binding, the deal will "help boost finance for developing countries, phase out subsidies that harm nature, and protect the rights of Indigenous communities".