The Dive of a Lifetime to the Deepest Place on Planet Earth

Dawn Wright

Dawn J. Wright, Ph.D., is Chief Scientist of the Environmental Systems Research Institute (aka “Esri”), a world-leading geographic information system (GIS) software, services and spatial data science company. She is also courtesy professor of Geography & Oceanography at OSU. From 1995-2011 Dr. Wright served full-time as an OSU tenure-track faculty member, first in the College of Science, and then in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. In 2007 she was named Oregon Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. In 2017 she fully endowed the “Lydia Departmental Dog Fund for Student Support,” for OSU students majoring in geography, marine resource management, and water resources.

 

Dr. Wright is an elected member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, as well as the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Under President Biden, she was selected to the first all-female cohort of US State Department Science Envoys, serving as a Science Envoy for Ocean Sustainability.

 

Dr. Wright’s research has spanned many fields ranging from marine geology, marine geophysics and physical geography to environmental informatics, and geographic information science. Her work has had significant impact on the use of GIS technology on a variety of seafloor mapping, environmental conservation, and regional/global terrestrial mapping projects, as well as the development of integrated data management, interoperability, and infrastructure across conservation science.

 

Her current research also provides important retrospectives and perspectives on emerging issues in spatial data science such as harmonization and integration of data, and approaches for international collaborative data sharing, as well as a communication of science that promotes engagement and innovation within various policy-making and industry sectors.

 

In terms of field work, Dr. Wright has participated in over 20 oceanographic research expeditions worldwide, to some of the most geologically active regions of the planet, including the East Pacific Rise, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the Juan de Fuca Ridge, the Tonga Trench, and volcanoes under the Japan Sea and the Indian Ocean. In 1991 she became the first Black female to dive to the deep ocean floor in a research submersible. In the summer of 2022 she became the first Black person of any gender (and the fifth woman) to dive nearly 7 miles to the deepest spot on the entire planet, Challenger Deep (western Pacific Ocean), and to successfully operate a sidescan sonar at full-ocean depth, all in collaboration with explorer Victor Vescovo and his Caladan Oceanic team.

 

Dr. Wright is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Geological Society of America (GSA), the American Association of Geographers (AAG), and The Oceanography Society (TOS). Her recent advisory board service has included the National Academy of Sciences Geographical and Geospatial Sciences Committee, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Corporation, the Directors Council of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the Board of Directors of the EO Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, the Strategic Advisory Group of the UN Ocean Decade’s Seabed 2030 Project, and the NOAA Science Advisory Board.

Dr. Wright holds an Individual Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Physical Geography and Marine Geology from UC-Santa Barbara, an M.S. in Oceanography from Texas A&M, and a B.S. cum laude in Geology from Wheaton College (Illinois).

 

Other interests include road cycling and mountain biking, 18^th-century pirates, building with LEGO bricks, her golden retriever Riley, and Spongebob Squarepants.



Her handle on all major social media platforms is @deepseadawn.