Season 2 |
Episode 7: Charting New Territories with Oceanographer Dr. Dawn Wright
[00:00:00] Rori Rohlfs: Welcome to Science Wise, a podcast where we talk with incredibly experienced scientists about their journeys and paths through science so that we can learn from their experiences.
[00:00:10] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: I'm Emilia, an associate professor in ecology, evolution, and organismal biology at Brown University
[00:00:17] Rori Rohlfs: and I'm Rori Hildegard Lamb from Associate Professor of Data Science and member of the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Oregon.
Today we are humbled to share with you our conversation with Dr. Dawn Wright, chief scientist of Esri and professor of geography and oceanography at Oregon State University. Dawn Wright is an incredibly accomplished marine geologist who is fascinated with the processes that shape the sea floor. She got her PhD from uc.
Santa Barbara held a faculty position at Oregon State University for 15 years and then transitioned to her current role as chief scientist of Esri. Her research has brought her down to the sea floor on incredible expeditions, including a dive to the deepest. Place in the entire ocean. The Challenger, deep in the Mariana Trench.
This made her one of just 22 people who have ever been to this unexplored place. It's difficult to know where to start in Dawn's long list of professional accolades, perhaps her election to both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. She's gotten loads of awards from scientific societies and universities for her research accomplishments, for her incredible teaching and for her work making science more accessible.
In fact, she's dedicated to public science communication and recently published a book called Mapping the Deep, which describes her dive to the Challenger.
Today, we are so happy that Dr. Dawn Wright is here with us and we are thrilled to have a conversation with you. Thank you for joining us. Oh, I'm delighted to be here. Thank you so much. Well, Dawn, we wanted to start by talking about your early life. I. I think to understand any of our early lives, we need to understand our parents.
So we know that your mom is from Baltimore and comes from a family who's been in Maryland for many generations. Your dad's from Charleston, uh, and it seems like your mom was really ambitious and some of her ambitions impacted where and how you grew up. So could you introduce us to your mom a bit and talk to us a bit about her path?
[00:02:21] Dawn Wright: Oh, I would love to, my mother is my heart and soul. Um, everything that I am is because of my mother. So I love talking about her and I miss her so much. Yes, she is, uh, is from Baltimore. Mm-hmm. Uh, she was trained in liberal arts and she's not a scientist, so that's one of the first things to know about her is that.
She was my, so much of a cheerleader for me in science and encouraging me to pursue what I wanted to do scientifically. She was a specialist in speech communication. She wasn't the first to go to college, but she was the first to leave to go to college. And she went out to, uh, Wheaton, Illinois.
[00:02:58] Rori Rohlfs: That's very far from Baltimore.
[00:03:00] Dawn Wright: Very, very far, very adventurous. And this was in the fifties.
[00:03:03] Rori Rohlfs: I was gonna say back then it was particularly a big deal.
[00:03:06] Dawn Wright: Yes. During a time of deep segregation. And there were many schools that she could not get into, but Wheaton accepted her and, uh, she went out there and had a wonderful experience. Uh, so much so that I ended up going there as well.
[00:03:20] Rori Rohlfs: Wow. You were really inspired by her.
[00:03:22] Dawn Wright: I was really inspired by her. Uh, and Wheaton is a small liberal arts college. And she graduated with a degree in speech and after that she ventured out to, uh, South Dakota State University. So she was there, uh, as a graduate student and she earned a master degree at, in, at South Dakota State.
And then from there, launched, uh, into teaching. Uh, she met my father in South Carolina because she was teaching, uh, at a small, uh, community college there. He went into coaching. So he was a high school basketball coach. The interesting thing, uh, about our family is that she was the leader, uh, of the family.
She was, uh, pursuing her career in teaching and she would get teaching jobs, uh, where she could, but she was painfully shy.
[00:04:09] Rori Rohlfs: I guess there's another dimension of her bravery that I didn't know before if like she actually pursued. One of the very things that really scared her.
[00:04:16] Dawn Wright: Yes, I, I think so.
And it's why I admired her. And, and of course you love your mother, but I, but I admired her so much because of that. And that's really what, what helped me because I ended up doing all of these adventurous things in my life. Things that she could never have imagined, even with the things that she had done.
And, uh, I ended up doing all these things that scared her to death and, and made her worry as a mother, but she, she never let that, uh, be a barrier to, to what? I was able to do, or she never held me back, or wow. She never, uh, downplayed it or, or tried to convince me to go in a different direction. She said, okay, this is what you've chosen.
This is what you, what you want. I'm behind you, and please call me as often as you can.
[00:05:00] Rori Rohlfs: I mean, what a gift. Yeah, what a gift. And I'm, it sounds like she really, even though she didn't take a scientific route in her life, but she really understood some of it. The emotional aspect of being like, passionate about something and overcoming fears.
[00:05:14] Dawn Wright: Uh, exactly. Yeah.
[00:05:14] Rori Rohlfs: That was part of your journey in your science and adventure.
[00:05:19] Dawn Wright: Yes. Uh, and, and some big moves because I was born in Baltimore, but uh, when I was four years old, we decided to, to leave and go to Canada. So I spent my kindergarten in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
[00:05:33] Rori Rohlfs: But your mom didn't. Stay in Saskatoon.
[00:05:36] Dawn Wright: Well, we were there in Canada for one year, uh, and then she was, uh, asked by, uh, the University of Hawaii to consider applying for a teaching post in Hawaii. She said, yes, I, let's try this. So we go from the middle of Canada to Hawaii. So that's where really things began for me in terms of my awareness and uh, my memories and I consider myself.
Uh, a Hawaiian, I'm not a Hawaiian ethnically, but in terms of culturally, that's where I grew up.
[00:06:05] Rori Rohlfs: Yeah. 'cause you were there from what, like when you were five until you were 15 ish or so,
[00:06:10] Dawn Wright: first grade to the middle of high school. Yeah. So it was about 10 years. Yeah. But, uh, my mother kept doing so well and they asked her to build a program in speech communication at a community college on Maui. So she took that opportunity and we all moved to Maui,
[00:06:26] Rori Rohlfs: which was. Much more rural,
[00:06:28] Dawn Wright: uh, very, yes, very rural at that time. But it was also where we had our first, uh, brush with racism. We moved on to this, uh, rural island. And again, we were the only black family, uh, the first black family, I think too, to move to Maui.
And I do recall that we had trouble finding, uh, a place to live. Uh, people would not rent to us. And I had my first experience with bullying, uh, in school.
[00:06:55] Rori Rohlfs: These like racial perceptions that are different in different contexts.
[00:06:59] Dawn Wright: Yes. Yeah.
[00:07:00] Rori Rohlfs: Really shines light onto the ways in which race is socially constructed.
[00:07:04] Dawn Wright: Exactly, yeah.
[00:07:05] Rori Rohlfs: After you were settled and you know, people were even kind of making wrong assumptions about where your family was from then you, did you experience more overt racist incidents or
[00:07:16] Dawn Wright: No, no. That that was, that was temporary. That, that was just like we were something new, uh, people that they had not seen.
So we became part of the, of the community, and then we had no further trouble. Now, the other things that I saw though, I always talk about the playground dynamics at that time, uh, in school. Because if you, uh, let's say you were playing during recess and someone from a new class came to, to join the group and, uh, there would be introductions among the children and the children would introduce themselves according to their ethnicity.
Uh, they would say, oh. Hi, my name is Kimmo and I'm part Hawaiian, part Chinese, part Filipino, and part Japanese. What's your name?
[00:07:59] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: Interesting. So is that something that you would do as well?
[00:08:02] Dawn Wright: Yes, and I used to wonder how should I introduce myself? Do you call yourself black? Do you call yourself African American?
Uh, but if you, and if you think about black people in the United States, we are all mixtures. So, so that, I'm very thankful for, for having grown up in, in that, in that culture.
[00:08:20] Rori Rohlfs: And was it in this time also, I mean, I can only imagine you're living in Maui, that you spent a lot of time with the ocean.
[00:08:27] Dawn Wright: Oh my goodness, yes.
[00:08:29] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: I was reading your book and I noticed that you mentioned that you, you did some snorkeling, some body surfing, and you, you mentioned that the ocean was always, you could always feel its presence, but now you study the deep ocean.
How did you go from being around the surface of the ocean to being really interested in its depth?
[00:08:49] Dawn Wright: The deep ocean came later, but I think that the seed was planted because I learned that the Hawaiian Islands, uh, are a series of volcanoes that rise from the deep ocean. You know, they, they have been active over a period of years and what started off as underwater volcanoes.
Became a whole series of islands, and that always fascinated me. So, uh, when I became a student and able to major in oceanography, I stuck with that interest in terms of, I, I'm very interested in ocean geology, in underwater volcanoes and volcanic activity, and of course you want to. Get to the, you want to get to the bottom of that, to use that pun, which, which means that you're, that you're necessarily gonna have to study the, the deep ocean.
And so that's how that connection was made.
[00:09:41] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: I see. Well connected to the islands too. You learn about its crew how they got created.
[00:09:46] Dawn Wright: Exactly.
[00:09:47] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: You've mentioned that you stayed in Hawaii until, uh, middle of high school and then, then you had to move. To Maryland.
[00:09:54] Dawn Wright: Yes. My grandmother became very ill and my mother just felt compelled to, to be there for, for my grandmother.
So, so she and I, 'cause by then my father had left, which was something that was, uh, very, very painful actually, because. Uh, I, I was in the middle of high school, uh, so this was a big decision that she made and we were very happy in Hawaii. Uh, and I loved my high school and everything, but I understood how important it was, uh, for her to, to do this.
And she had to find, uh, a new job. Uh, we had to, we, we had to start over. It was another adventure. We did not wanna go from a beautiful island living to a, a very urban, yeah. Eastern east coast city again, that, that was, that was impossible. That was too much of a transition for us to make. But we found out at the time about these planned cities, they, they were two, uh, communities that were, were being, they were designed and built to be sort of like the next generation of urban planning and community living and the high schools there were also really, uh, amazing.
[00:11:08] Rori Rohlfs: You were also a pretty accomplished athlete, it seems at the time.
How did you choose, why did you choose science?
[00:11:16] Dawn Wright: Oh, I just love science. I mean, that, that was my favorite subject. And, and the goal was to become an oceanographer because I had, uh, I had made that little decision in my little head and heart when I was eight.
[00:11:28] Rori Rohlfs: Yeah. And always about the sea floor. Emilia, you've kind of stuck to that no?
[00:11:32] Dawn Wright: Yes. Uh, yeah. I, I think I stuck to it. Yeah.
[00:11:35] Rori Rohlfs: So you, you went to Wheaton. Following in your mom?
[00:11:39] Dawn Wright: Yes. So I went, uh, I ended up choosing Wheaton and I chose Wheaton, uh, because of my mother's experience there, but also they had a good geology program. In fact, there are a couple of really famous geologists who came out of Wheaton College and they went on to Columbia University.
[00:11:56] Rori Rohlfs: Did you have a supportive experience there?
[00:11:57] Dawn Wright: I did. I did. I, I had a wonderful time, wonderful time at, at Wheaton. Now, there again, there were only a few of us who, who were black. There was no quota, but they, they had gotten rid of that. Yeah, so it was, uh, straight up, full on proper affirmative, uh, action, uh, in the standpoint that they were trying to increase the diversity of the campus.
And if you were interested in Wheaton, they, they, uh, welcomed you with open arms.
[00:12:25] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: In your book there, you're right that you wanted to develop as a whole person in mind, but also body and spirit. And I think a lot of what we talk about it at in this podcast is about mentorship. And you know, a lot of students struggle to make a choice sometimes.
Um. And so they're influenced by, by their parents. You know, parents want their, their kids to go on and study something that is gonna make them financially stable. What would you tell kids who are looking for colleges to, what would be the questions they, that you recommend they ask themselves in making that choice?
[00:13:01] Dawn Wright: Well, I think they should ask themselves if the college offers them, uh, the complete package, uh, in terms of am I going to be happy here? Am I going to be able to study, not only study what I'm interested in studying, but also there are clubs and activities and programs. That will make me feel welcome, that I will, uh, enjoy.
That will make me feel part of a community. Uh, are there, are there gonna be ways for, for me to learn about other things that interest me, such as maybe studying in a different country or, uh, what are the different types of certificate programs that might be available? Uh, all, all of these, these things that it's more than just going to a college or a university with a good academic program, I think.
Uh, the, there's the whole package there. Having, having said that, there are still, uh, so many challenges today with, uh, university or college education being affordable. Oh, yeah. Uh, and, uh, the, uh, how far away can you afford to go, uh, and, and what is available in terms of, of scholarships and fellowships?
What, what is going to be the, uh, the opportunities given again, what's happening in, in the country? With the Department of Education and, and all of that,
[00:14:18] Rori Rohlfs: we're facing some real challenges on some big levels. Yeah. In your undergrad, you were, you know, highly supported. You were in like a small cohort, learning geology, and then you went on to your master's.
That was Texas a and m. You know, you had like wonderful high school experiences, wonderful undergrad experiences. Was there a point where. The supportive atmosphere kind of fell out?
[00:14:40] Dawn Wright: I, I think so. Uh, Texas a and m uh, offered me a, a full fellowship, so, so that's wonderful. So I went into a graduate program with my own funding, which was just really, really a, uh.
Well, a gift. Uh, but at the same time, uh, it was a, it was a diversity fellowship, but, uh, the, there, there was no support other than the money.
[00:15:02] Rori Rohlfs: Then you have independence. You get to choose a lot about your own studies. There was no professional development or cohort or anything like that.
[00:15:10] Dawn Wright: Nothing like that.
Yeah. There was, there was nothing, and I mean nothing. There was no, uh, student success center. There was no. Diversity center, there was no black cultural center. There were no advisors.
[00:15:22] Rori Rohlfs: They just plopped you in there. They were like, there were no, uh, students,
[00:15:26] Dawn Wright: Uh, to welcome you. Nothing.
[00:15:27] Rori Rohlfs: Oh, wow.
[00:15:28] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: You had to do everything by yourself?
[00:15:30] Dawn Wright: Uh, yes. Yes. Everything by myself. But I, I was coming in as a, as a graduate student, you know, with, with, with that maturity, and I was coming into a very good program, the Texas a and my oceanography department, uh, was a, was a great department. I felt right at home there. I was so thankful to get my fellowship money that, uh, I didn't feel as though I was being denied or that I was lacking, but in comparison to what?
Programs are like today where, where students are supported so comprehensively. Uh, I, I'm always, I'm thinking back to those days and I'm shocked. It's like, there, there was nothing. I went to an office to get my, my little fellowship check every month and that was it.
[00:16:11] Rori Rohlfs: Oh gosh. And that was, yeah, it's very different.
Very different from like your weekly meetings and your mentoring teams. And I mean, I, I'm into weekly meetings and mentoring teams. I'm super supportive of that, but that is not. The kind of support that you had back then, but you did have, there was a positive academic environment and you had very well-defined interests.
You were like, since you were eight, you were like, no, sea floor. I've learned a lot of geology. I wanna learn oceanography.
[00:16:36] Dawn Wright: I was following the plan because I had. Uh, read that if you wanna become an oceanographer, you first get a good degree in one of the basic sciences. At that time, uh, most of the oceanographic training, professional training started at the graduate level, and that's still actually the, the case.
Uh, for the most part in the US there are many colleges and universities now that offer, uh, undergraduate degrees in, in oceanography, uh, Oregon states is one of them, but, but still. Uh, there the, in terms of really getting, uh, top level opportunities to, to work in the sciences, you, you start at the graduate level and you get your master and your, or your, and or your PhD.
[00:17:23] Rori Rohlfs: You already had the strong background in geology, your. Getting into your actual field of, or you know, closer to your field of interest in like, yes.
[00:17:31] Dawn Wright: Not only getting into the field. Yeah. I was in an oceanography program to get an oceanography degree. So I'd finally arrived. Yeah.
[00:17:40] Rori Rohlfs: And at that point, as I understand, so you studied the, the sea floor and the landscape of the Tonga Trench.
[00:17:46] Dawn Wright: Yes, yes. Very well said Uhhuh.
[00:17:49] Rori Rohlfs: But at that time, you, you did not like go to the Tonga trench to study it. This is, you were using data that had been collected.
[00:17:56] Dawn Wright: Yes. Is that right? Yes.
[00:17:57] Rori Rohlfs: So would, would you say that this is maybe the start of. You are interested in data specifically,
[00:18:03] Dawn Wright: uh, with all the opportunities to go to see that Texas a and m had their own research vessel and uh, some students were able to actually.
Collect data for their thesis. But I had this interest in this part of the world, uh, in the Western Pacific, uh, owing to my, my time in Hawaii. And I had, uh, met, uh, people and, uh, learned about the cultures of Samoa and Fiji and Tonga. And so when I, uh, learned about the Tonga trench, uh, in a class, I thought, boy would I love to, to study that in some way.
And I found out about getting the data, the data being available. But, but that's part of the, the story, uh, that goes awry, uh, for me in terms of my experience at Texas a and m because I, I came in, uh, under the, the tutelage of a wonderful professor who wanted me to work with him, and he would've been a fantastic advisor, but he was a sedimentologist and I was not really interested in what he was, what he studied.
And, and so I am very diplomatic, uh. I asked him if I could switch, uh, advisors, and I asked another professor who was studying, uh, the, these areas that I was really interested in. He was, he studied the volcanoes of Hawaii, and, uh, he, he knew his emphasis was deeper, uh, deeper water and Pacific. Uh, and I loved his class, his introductory class.
And so I asked him if I could, uh, be his student. Uh, and he took me on as his first student. He was just out of, uh, his PhD program, uh, and he came to Texas from the University of Hawaii. And how was your experience working with him? I thought he was brilliant, but I think he was, uh, overrun by the, the pressures that are put on assistant professors, especially in high level, university, big university programs, the whole publisher parish.
Uh, yeah, it's, it's very rough. And, uh, there, there were no weekly meetings with him. There was no advising, uh, uh, he, I was pretty much left to my own devices.
[00:20:07] Rori Rohlfs: Okay. So kind of an old school academic style where it's kind of like you are. You are his student in air quotes, but really you're working very independently.
[00:20:17] Dawn Wright: So I was a fellowship student. I was not his research assistant. I didn't have a research assistantship with him. Uh, I don't know whether he had any other students, uh, at the time actually, I. I don't, I don't remember that because there was no, there was no cohort, there's no lab culture. There was none of that.
And I wanted to, uh, I didn't wanna give up on my study area, so I wandered over to the, uh, geology and geophysics department, a completely different department, but, uh, was related to oceanography because of the, uh, connection to ocean floor geology. There, there were a lot of marine geologists in this department.
I think I took a seminar class over in that department. That's probably how it started. So, so I went over there, uh, as a, to take that seminar and I met a couple of graduate students there who were actually working in the area that I was interested in, and I asked them for help. I. And they took me on, uh, as they were basically my major advisors they taught me everything I needed to know.
[00:21:18] Rori Rohlfs: You found your own mentors who
[00:21:20] Dawn Wright: I, I had to find my own mentors. Yeah.
[00:21:22] Rori Rohlfs: Which is, you know, honestly how it is so often. Yeah. Um, so you did this early in your masters? Yeah. Were
[00:21:29] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: were they Master's students or were they PhD students?
[00:21:31] Dawn Wright: They were PhD students. And they were, uh, close to, to finishing.
They were very senior, very advanced, very experienced, and very kind. Uh, they, they were both wonderful. They were also good friends with each other. So together, they, they helped me out and I, I've kept in touch with them, uh, over the years. They made it possible for me to put together a thesis. And, and I defended my thesis.
And, uh, I really didn't have much help from my committee either, when, now that I think of it,
[00:22:02] Rori Rohlfs: they just gave you a lot of rope. They, they, yeah. Like, but you made this thesis.
[00:22:06] Dawn Wright: I made the thesis.
[00:22:07] Rori Rohlfs: You like. You found your mentors, you learned the techniques, you figured out how to do this data analysis.
[00:22:13] Dawn Wright: What I was doing was a, uh, a geophysical analysis of the structure of the Tonga Trench, uh, because it changes its character.
It's a trench that curves, uh, around, uh, it's a boundary between two tectonic plates and it, there's some very interesting, uh, dynamics, uh, structural dynamics as this. As this feature, this scar in the ocean crust, um, makes this abrupt turn around this, this corner. And so I studied that, that particular area and came up with some conclusions and, uh, did the, uh, geophysical modeling.
Uh, they helped me to write the computer program, uh, for it and everything. And so I presented this and my committee passed me. But in my one-on-one, uh, after, after the defense. My advisor told me on behalf of the committee that it, well, you, you did this, you we're gonna pass you, but we don't think that you should continue in the discipline.
We, we think that, uh, you know, this, this was just, just adequate. So we're gonna pass you. But, uh, we wouldn't recommend that you go on for a PhD. We actually recommend that you maybe think about law school, or maybe getting an MBA get an MBA.
[00:23:28] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: That's so like you're different.
[00:23:31] Rori Rohlfs: You wanted to study this curvature of the con. I don't know. I'm just like, oh my God.
[00:23:34] Dawn Wright: It's pretty stunning. Yeah, I was pretty stunned and I was like, well, first of all. Thank you for passing me, but thank you also for not helping me at all,
[00:23:43] Rori Rohlfs: and thank, thank you for your first feedback on my science.
[00:23:45] Dawn Wright: Yeah, like that lit a fire in me though, in terms of, uh, it, it was wonderful to survive that, but I thought, oh my goodness, if I do continue on and get a PhD and have students of my own, I am going to take care. I'm gonna make sure that they do not have the same experience where they're not given this rope and, uh, and, and just tossed to their own devices. Uh, tossing in the wind, uh, uh, scrambling to find, uh, resources, uh, mentorship, mentor. The mentor would actually provide them. I'm a mentor. Yeah. I'm going to really, uh, work with them and give them what they need and be there for them.
Yeah. Uh, and that's the. That was actually the experience I had from my doctoral degree where I had an advisor like that who did support, who did that model and gave you the feedback and told you when exactly they thought you were off course.
[00:24:38] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: So after this happened, you became a marine tech. Did you have that job already lined up before this happened or is something that you had to find afterwards?
[00:24:47] Dawn Wright: It was beautiful serendipity because Texas a and m had just won this amazing contract to be the science operator for, uh, this global sea floor sampling program called the Ocean Drilling Program that had just happened, and they were looking for marine technicians just at the time that I was graduating.
So talk about being in the right place at the right time. So I thought, okay, you know, I have a master degree. They let me pass. I and I did good work. You're qualified. Yeah. And I'm qualified for this job and I applied for the job and immediately got it. So then I, it was, I didn't, we didn't know what a gap year was back then, but I ended up taking, uh, three years of a gap and working in the most amazing, wonderful, adventurous job that I could think of, and continuing to learn about geology and geophysics and rubbing shoulders with.
Some of the best, uh, uh, uh, in their field who came onto that ship and, and did expeditions getting the opportunity to travel, uh, as part of the marine technician team, the first expedition they sent me out on, uh was to Antarctica. So my first expedition was from, uh, Punta Ores Chile, uh, down to the We lc of Antarctica.
[00:26:02] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: How long was that trip?
[00:26:03] Dawn Wright: So all of these trips were two months. We worked 12 hour shifts, uh, uh, seven days a week on the ship. Wow. And rather than pay us over time. They gave us time off sea time. So, so we, everyone would, I mean if you're, if your port of call is the next port for me, were around the Indian Ocean, so our ports of call, were in Fremantle, Australia and, uh, Sri Lanka and, uh, ways to get to Africa you're going to travel. Yeah. Out to these amazing places. Uhhuh. So I did that for, for three years. Uh, and during that time I also had an opportunity to think about the next step, uh, also.
[00:26:42] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: Scientists would come on board then, and and you would be helping them? What? Collect data? Is that? What was your job?
[00:26:49] Dawn Wright: Yes. The technicians, uh, onboard this ship. They ran all of the laboratories. This ship was a floating marine geology and geophysics laboratory, so it was a drill ship, so they would core for, for sediments and rocks from the sea floor. In order to discern the history, uh, of the, the sea floor and really of the ocean and the planet at that time.
And instead of going back to land, to process all of that, all of those cores, they had all of the laboratories necessary to do the processing right there on the ship. So they needed technicians to. To run those samples, uh, in those various laboratories on the ship. And then here's also where I learned about data because my main job was as a data librarian and as a shipboard reports librarian, uh, on the ship.
So, so I managed, uh, all of that and, uh, really learned about it. Uh, I guess that was my, it could have been my first entry into data science, uh, certainly, uh, into scientific editing because I was also responsible for editing all of the reports coming from all of the various labs. Every time they would run samples, they would write up the results and, and I had to compile those reports.
And I also edited them in terms of. Uh, spelling and proper geologic, uh, term usage and just basic scientific editing, like a journal editing. So that was wonderful. Uh, a wonderful experience.
[00:28:16] Rori Rohlfs: Wow, that's so cool.
[00:28:18] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: I showed my kids one picture of you in the vehicle that you used to go to the deep, uh, the challenger deep, and we were all looking at this picture.
And then my son, who's eight years old, the first thing he noticed is that Snoopy?
[00:28:32] Dawn Wright: Yes.
[00:28:33] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: What was Snoopy doing in this picture?
[00:28:35] Dawn Wright: Oh, I always dive
[00:28:36] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: in the limiting factor.
[00:28:37] Dawn Wright: I always dive with Snoopy. Oh, so I, so all of the dives that I've done in the Alvin and the Pisces five and, and then in the limiting factor, I always have Snoopy with me. I'm a, I'm a Snoopy fan, so I always take him with me.
[00:28:52] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: Oh, that's, that's so great.
Well, actually, my kids ask some questions. They ask, what animals did you see? How long were you down there? Did you feel scared? What does it sound like? Is it hotter going down or hotter going up?
[00:29:05] Dawn Wright: So I, I can answer a couple of those.
[00:29:07] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: Okay.
[00:29:08] Dawn Wright: So in terms of how long we were down there, uh, it was a 10-hour dive. It took us four hours to descend to the bottom, and then we had two and a half hours to, to do a survey using an instrument that we are using, but also to observe. Uh, as much biology and geology as we could, and then another, uh, three and a half hours to come back up.
And we did see, we were, we were nearly seven miles, uh, deep, uh, in the deepest. Part of the ocean. And I think the people are surprised to find that there are creatures that live, uh, at that depth, that those crushing pressures.
[00:29:45] Rori Rohlfs: I mean, that is so wild.
[00:29:46] Dawn Wright: It is. It's wild. And they are amazing creatures. We mainly saw these little amphipods, they're like little shrimp and uh, little sea cucumbers. They're very simple creatures. So there were no fish, there's no no sharks, there's no kraken, there's nothing like that. Uh, those higher-order creatures. Uh, as far as we know, the deepest depth for fish is around 8,000 or 9,000 meters at most.
[00:30:14] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: Wow. So people must be discovering so many new species as well, right at that depth?
[00:30:18] Dawn Wright: Yes. Uh, now I was only on one dive and the species that we saw had already been discovered by others, but we did have a, uh, another robot with us that was positioned around 7,400 meters. Uh, so it was up shallower on the wall of the trench above us. Uh, and its video cameras captured a, uh, a beautiful pectus profunda cola jellyfish.
And apparently, that sighting of that jellyfish was the deepest that that particular species had been cited. But it looked like a little alien spaceship.
[00:30:57] Rori Rohlfs: And what about the geology? What did you, I mean, is your interest as a sea floor geologist, like what did you manage to learn?
[00:31:05] Dawn Wright: Well, the, I was excited to be there because this is one of the, the major collision zones on the planet in terms of one plate slamming into another and then diving beneath that plate.
So this is a place where the Pacific plate slams into the, uh, Philippine sea plate. And I say slams because this is an area of earthquake activity. You know, there are consequences for, for such a collision. Uh, the collision rate is, uh, a little, a little faster than your, your fingernails grow. So in terms of geologic motion, that's, that's pretty aggressive.
That's very fast. So it isn't very, it's a very aggressive part of the sea floor. And as a result of this collision. We saw this, these vast fields of boulders, basically these are chunks of the Pacific plate that have been scraped off as the plate makes the, that it's turned downward into the earth to to disappear in the Earth, into the Earth.
So it was very exciting for me to see these huge chunks of wow salt and. A little bit of, uh, the mantle, the earth's mantle, uh, is revealed there in those rocks.
[00:32:15] Rori Rohlfs: Did you ever feel scared when you were?
[00:32:17] Dawn Wright: No. No. Uh, for me, a submersible is a scientific instrument. It's a scientific tool, and I had had these other dives and this dive just happened to be deeper, the deepest, and it was longer because of that.
But it was for for me, it was, I don't wanna say just another dive, but I was there on a scientific mission.
[00:32:36] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: Nice. That's reassuring.
[00:32:38] Rori Rohlfs: And do you think that some of this, I mean, incredible exploration and adventure through science that you've done was connected to your mom's bold and ambitious moves in her career?
[00:32:51] Dawn Wright: I think so, yeah. I, I'd like to think that it had a very nice role in it. And again, as frightened as she was whenever I went to see, she was always completely behind me and completely fascinated and interested in everything and, uh, very proud.
[00:33:08] Rori Rohlfs: Yeah, I mean, that's beautiful. That's what we all need. We could keep talking to you for hours, literally.
It would be very easy. But we're getting close to the end of our time, so I want to ask you. About a little segment that we often do called Revise and resubmit, where we ask our guests if there's anything in their career or in science culture that, looking back, they would revise and resubmit.
[00:33:30] Dawn Wright: That's a wonderful question, and I would probably revise and resubmit on self-care.
[00:33:35] Rori Rohlfs: Okay.
[00:33:35] Dawn Wright: Especially as a woman, uh, in science, especially. Maybe as a, as a black woman. Uh, but I came close to literally burning out on a couple of occasions throughout my career. And if I, I probably would've gotten a personal trainer Okay. Uh, a little earlier in my career to keep me on track, uh, in terms of, uh.
Getting the proper rest and nutrition. I, I think all of us, when we're young, we think we're, uh, invincible or, or, or you feel like you're invincible. And, uh, I was on a mission to, to just do everything that I could when I could do it. If I could do that over, I would be more measured in that area.
[00:34:13] Rori Rohlfs: Take a little break. Take care of your body and yourself. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for sharing that wisdom. Dr. Wright, Dawn Wright, thank you so much for joining us today. I have learned so much from your experiences and your wisdom, and I am gonna take all of these ideas with me as I go tell them to my kids who are fans of yours.
Uh, thank you again.
[00:34:35] Dawn Wright: Oh, you are a wonderful interviewer, Rory, you and Emilia. This was really a delight. Thank you so much.
[00:34:41] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: Thank you so much. Thanks for listening.
[00:34:44] Rori Rohlfs: Check out the show notes for some links to Dawn's recent book, mapping The Deep and some of her other research work.
[00:34:50] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: This episode was produced and edited by Maribel Quezada Smith. Sound Engineering by Keegan Stromberg. Special thanks to Dr. Dawn Wright. The hosts of Science Wise are Rori and me, Emilia Huerta-Sanchez.
[00:00:10] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: I'm Emilia, an associate professor in ecology, evolution, and organismal biology at Brown University
[00:00:17] Rori Rohlfs: and I'm Rori Hildegard Lamb from Associate Professor of Data Science and member of the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Oregon.
Today we are humbled to share with you our conversation with Dr. Dawn Wright, chief scientist of Esri and professor of geography and oceanography at Oregon State University. Dawn Wright is an incredibly accomplished marine geologist who is fascinated with the processes that shape the sea floor. She got her PhD from uc.
Santa Barbara held a faculty position at Oregon State University for 15 years and then transitioned to her current role as chief scientist of Esri. Her research has brought her down to the sea floor on incredible expeditions, including a dive to the deepest. Place in the entire ocean. The Challenger, deep in the Mariana Trench.
This made her one of just 22 people who have ever been to this unexplored place. It's difficult to know where to start in Dawn's long list of professional accolades, perhaps her election to both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. She's gotten loads of awards from scientific societies and universities for her research accomplishments, for her incredible teaching and for her work making science more accessible.
In fact, she's dedicated to public science communication and recently published a book called Mapping the Deep, which describes her dive to the Challenger.
Today, we are so happy that Dr. Dawn Wright is here with us and we are thrilled to have a conversation with you. Thank you for joining us. Oh, I'm delighted to be here. Thank you so much. Well, Dawn, we wanted to start by talking about your early life. I. I think to understand any of our early lives, we need to understand our parents.
So we know that your mom is from Baltimore and comes from a family who's been in Maryland for many generations. Your dad's from Charleston, uh, and it seems like your mom was really ambitious and some of her ambitions impacted where and how you grew up. So could you introduce us to your mom a bit and talk to us a bit about her path?
[00:02:21] Dawn Wright: Oh, I would love to, my mother is my heart and soul. Um, everything that I am is because of my mother. So I love talking about her and I miss her so much. Yes, she is, uh, is from Baltimore. Mm-hmm. Uh, she was trained in liberal arts and she's not a scientist, so that's one of the first things to know about her is that.
She was my, so much of a cheerleader for me in science and encouraging me to pursue what I wanted to do scientifically. She was a specialist in speech communication. She wasn't the first to go to college, but she was the first to leave to go to college. And she went out to, uh, Wheaton, Illinois.
[00:02:58] Rori Rohlfs: That's very far from Baltimore.
[00:03:00] Dawn Wright: Very, very far, very adventurous. And this was in the fifties.
[00:03:03] Rori Rohlfs: I was gonna say back then it was particularly a big deal.
[00:03:06] Dawn Wright: Yes. During a time of deep segregation. And there were many schools that she could not get into, but Wheaton accepted her and, uh, she went out there and had a wonderful experience. Uh, so much so that I ended up going there as well.
[00:03:20] Rori Rohlfs: Wow. You were really inspired by her.
[00:03:22] Dawn Wright: I was really inspired by her. Uh, and Wheaton is a small liberal arts college. And she graduated with a degree in speech and after that she ventured out to, uh, South Dakota State University. So she was there, uh, as a graduate student and she earned a master degree at, in, at South Dakota State.
And then from there, launched, uh, into teaching. Uh, she met my father in South Carolina because she was teaching, uh, at a small, uh, community college there. He went into coaching. So he was a high school basketball coach. The interesting thing, uh, about our family is that she was the leader, uh, of the family.
She was, uh, pursuing her career in teaching and she would get teaching jobs, uh, where she could, but she was painfully shy.
[00:04:09] Rori Rohlfs: I guess there's another dimension of her bravery that I didn't know before if like she actually pursued. One of the very things that really scared her.
[00:04:16] Dawn Wright: Yes, I, I think so.
And it's why I admired her. And, and of course you love your mother, but I, but I admired her so much because of that. And that's really what, what helped me because I ended up doing all of these adventurous things in my life. Things that she could never have imagined, even with the things that she had done.
And, uh, I ended up doing all these things that scared her to death and, and made her worry as a mother, but she, she never let that, uh, be a barrier to, to what? I was able to do, or she never held me back, or wow. She never, uh, downplayed it or, or tried to convince me to go in a different direction. She said, okay, this is what you've chosen.
This is what you, what you want. I'm behind you, and please call me as often as you can.
[00:05:00] Rori Rohlfs: I mean, what a gift. Yeah, what a gift. And I'm, it sounds like she really, even though she didn't take a scientific route in her life, but she really understood some of it. The emotional aspect of being like, passionate about something and overcoming fears.
[00:05:14] Dawn Wright: Uh, exactly. Yeah.
[00:05:14] Rori Rohlfs: That was part of your journey in your science and adventure.
[00:05:19] Dawn Wright: Yes. Uh, and, and some big moves because I was born in Baltimore, but uh, when I was four years old, we decided to, to leave and go to Canada. So I spent my kindergarten in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
[00:05:33] Rori Rohlfs: But your mom didn't. Stay in Saskatoon.
[00:05:36] Dawn Wright: Well, we were there in Canada for one year, uh, and then she was, uh, asked by, uh, the University of Hawaii to consider applying for a teaching post in Hawaii. She said, yes, I, let's try this. So we go from the middle of Canada to Hawaii. So that's where really things began for me in terms of my awareness and uh, my memories and I consider myself.
Uh, a Hawaiian, I'm not a Hawaiian ethnically, but in terms of culturally, that's where I grew up.
[00:06:05] Rori Rohlfs: Yeah. 'cause you were there from what, like when you were five until you were 15 ish or so,
[00:06:10] Dawn Wright: first grade to the middle of high school. Yeah. So it was about 10 years. Yeah. But, uh, my mother kept doing so well and they asked her to build a program in speech communication at a community college on Maui. So she took that opportunity and we all moved to Maui,
[00:06:26] Rori Rohlfs: which was. Much more rural,
[00:06:28] Dawn Wright: uh, very, yes, very rural at that time. But it was also where we had our first, uh, brush with racism. We moved on to this, uh, rural island. And again, we were the only black family, uh, the first black family, I think too, to move to Maui.
And I do recall that we had trouble finding, uh, a place to live. Uh, people would not rent to us. And I had my first experience with bullying, uh, in school.
[00:06:55] Rori Rohlfs: These like racial perceptions that are different in different contexts.
[00:06:59] Dawn Wright: Yes. Yeah.
[00:07:00] Rori Rohlfs: Really shines light onto the ways in which race is socially constructed.
[00:07:04] Dawn Wright: Exactly, yeah.
[00:07:05] Rori Rohlfs: After you were settled and you know, people were even kind of making wrong assumptions about where your family was from then you, did you experience more overt racist incidents or
[00:07:16] Dawn Wright: No, no. That that was, that was temporary. That, that was just like we were something new, uh, people that they had not seen.
So we became part of the, of the community, and then we had no further trouble. Now, the other things that I saw though, I always talk about the playground dynamics at that time, uh, in school. Because if you, uh, let's say you were playing during recess and someone from a new class came to, to join the group and, uh, there would be introductions among the children and the children would introduce themselves according to their ethnicity.
Uh, they would say, oh. Hi, my name is Kimmo and I'm part Hawaiian, part Chinese, part Filipino, and part Japanese. What's your name?
[00:07:59] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: Interesting. So is that something that you would do as well?
[00:08:02] Dawn Wright: Yes, and I used to wonder how should I introduce myself? Do you call yourself black? Do you call yourself African American?
Uh, but if you, and if you think about black people in the United States, we are all mixtures. So, so that, I'm very thankful for, for having grown up in, in that, in that culture.
[00:08:20] Rori Rohlfs: And was it in this time also, I mean, I can only imagine you're living in Maui, that you spent a lot of time with the ocean.
[00:08:27] Dawn Wright: Oh my goodness, yes.
[00:08:29] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: I was reading your book and I noticed that you mentioned that you, you did some snorkeling, some body surfing, and you, you mentioned that the ocean was always, you could always feel its presence, but now you study the deep ocean.
How did you go from being around the surface of the ocean to being really interested in its depth?
[00:08:49] Dawn Wright: The deep ocean came later, but I think that the seed was planted because I learned that the Hawaiian Islands, uh, are a series of volcanoes that rise from the deep ocean. You know, they, they have been active over a period of years and what started off as underwater volcanoes.
Became a whole series of islands, and that always fascinated me. So, uh, when I became a student and able to major in oceanography, I stuck with that interest in terms of, I, I'm very interested in ocean geology, in underwater volcanoes and volcanic activity, and of course you want to. Get to the, you want to get to the bottom of that, to use that pun, which, which means that you're, that you're necessarily gonna have to study the, the deep ocean.
And so that's how that connection was made.
[00:09:41] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: I see. Well connected to the islands too. You learn about its crew how they got created.
[00:09:46] Dawn Wright: Exactly.
[00:09:47] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: You've mentioned that you stayed in Hawaii until, uh, middle of high school and then, then you had to move. To Maryland.
[00:09:54] Dawn Wright: Yes. My grandmother became very ill and my mother just felt compelled to, to be there for, for my grandmother.
So, so she and I, 'cause by then my father had left, which was something that was, uh, very, very painful actually, because. Uh, I, I was in the middle of high school, uh, so this was a big decision that she made and we were very happy in Hawaii. Uh, and I loved my high school and everything, but I understood how important it was, uh, for her to, to do this.
And she had to find, uh, a new job. Uh, we had to, we, we had to start over. It was another adventure. We did not wanna go from a beautiful island living to a, a very urban, yeah. Eastern east coast city again, that, that was, that was impossible. That was too much of a transition for us to make. But we found out at the time about these planned cities, they, they were two, uh, communities that were, were being, they were designed and built to be sort of like the next generation of urban planning and community living and the high schools there were also really, uh, amazing.
[00:11:08] Rori Rohlfs: You were also a pretty accomplished athlete, it seems at the time.
How did you choose, why did you choose science?
[00:11:16] Dawn Wright: Oh, I just love science. I mean, that, that was my favorite subject. And, and the goal was to become an oceanographer because I had, uh, I had made that little decision in my little head and heart when I was eight.
[00:11:28] Rori Rohlfs: Yeah. And always about the sea floor. Emilia, you've kind of stuck to that no?
[00:11:32] Dawn Wright: Yes. Uh, yeah. I, I think I stuck to it. Yeah.
[00:11:35] Rori Rohlfs: So you, you went to Wheaton. Following in your mom?
[00:11:39] Dawn Wright: Yes. So I went, uh, I ended up choosing Wheaton and I chose Wheaton, uh, because of my mother's experience there, but also they had a good geology program. In fact, there are a couple of really famous geologists who came out of Wheaton College and they went on to Columbia University.
[00:11:56] Rori Rohlfs: Did you have a supportive experience there?
[00:11:57] Dawn Wright: I did. I did. I, I had a wonderful time, wonderful time at, at Wheaton. Now, there again, there were only a few of us who, who were black. There was no quota, but they, they had gotten rid of that. Yeah, so it was, uh, straight up, full on proper affirmative, uh, action, uh, in the standpoint that they were trying to increase the diversity of the campus.
And if you were interested in Wheaton, they, they, uh, welcomed you with open arms.
[00:12:25] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: In your book there, you're right that you wanted to develop as a whole person in mind, but also body and spirit. And I think a lot of what we talk about it at in this podcast is about mentorship. And you know, a lot of students struggle to make a choice sometimes.
Um. And so they're influenced by, by their parents. You know, parents want their, their kids to go on and study something that is gonna make them financially stable. What would you tell kids who are looking for colleges to, what would be the questions they, that you recommend they ask themselves in making that choice?
[00:13:01] Dawn Wright: Well, I think they should ask themselves if the college offers them, uh, the complete package, uh, in terms of am I going to be happy here? Am I going to be able to study, not only study what I'm interested in studying, but also there are clubs and activities and programs. That will make me feel welcome, that I will, uh, enjoy.
That will make me feel part of a community. Uh, are there, are there gonna be ways for, for me to learn about other things that interest me, such as maybe studying in a different country or, uh, what are the different types of certificate programs that might be available? Uh, all, all of these, these things that it's more than just going to a college or a university with a good academic program, I think.
Uh, the, there's the whole package there. Having, having said that, there are still, uh, so many challenges today with, uh, university or college education being affordable. Oh, yeah. Uh, and, uh, the, uh, how far away can you afford to go, uh, and, and what is available in terms of, of scholarships and fellowships?
What, what is going to be the, uh, the opportunities given again, what's happening in, in the country? With the Department of Education and, and all of that,
[00:14:18] Rori Rohlfs: we're facing some real challenges on some big levels. Yeah. In your undergrad, you were, you know, highly supported. You were in like a small cohort, learning geology, and then you went on to your master's.
That was Texas a and m. You know, you had like wonderful high school experiences, wonderful undergrad experiences. Was there a point where. The supportive atmosphere kind of fell out?
[00:14:40] Dawn Wright: I, I think so. Uh, Texas a and m uh, offered me a, a full fellowship, so, so that's wonderful. So I went into a graduate program with my own funding, which was just really, really a, uh.
Well, a gift. Uh, but at the same time, uh, it was a, it was a diversity fellowship, but, uh, the, there, there was no support other than the money.
[00:15:02] Rori Rohlfs: Then you have independence. You get to choose a lot about your own studies. There was no professional development or cohort or anything like that.
[00:15:10] Dawn Wright: Nothing like that.
Yeah. There was, there was nothing, and I mean nothing. There was no, uh, student success center. There was no. Diversity center, there was no black cultural center. There were no advisors.
[00:15:22] Rori Rohlfs: They just plopped you in there. They were like, there were no, uh, students,
[00:15:26] Dawn Wright: Uh, to welcome you. Nothing.
[00:15:27] Rori Rohlfs: Oh, wow.
[00:15:28] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: You had to do everything by yourself?
[00:15:30] Dawn Wright: Uh, yes. Yes. Everything by myself. But I, I was coming in as a, as a graduate student, you know, with, with, with that maturity, and I was coming into a very good program, the Texas a and my oceanography department, uh, was a, was a great department. I felt right at home there. I was so thankful to get my fellowship money that, uh, I didn't feel as though I was being denied or that I was lacking, but in comparison to what?
Programs are like today where, where students are supported so comprehensively. Uh, I, I'm always, I'm thinking back to those days and I'm shocked. It's like, there, there was nothing. I went to an office to get my, my little fellowship check every month and that was it.
[00:16:11] Rori Rohlfs: Oh gosh. And that was, yeah, it's very different.
Very different from like your weekly meetings and your mentoring teams. And I mean, I, I'm into weekly meetings and mentoring teams. I'm super supportive of that, but that is not. The kind of support that you had back then, but you did have, there was a positive academic environment and you had very well-defined interests.
You were like, since you were eight, you were like, no, sea floor. I've learned a lot of geology. I wanna learn oceanography.
[00:16:36] Dawn Wright: I was following the plan because I had. Uh, read that if you wanna become an oceanographer, you first get a good degree in one of the basic sciences. At that time, uh, most of the oceanographic training, professional training started at the graduate level, and that's still actually the, the case.
Uh, for the most part in the US there are many colleges and universities now that offer, uh, undergraduate degrees in, in oceanography, uh, Oregon states is one of them, but, but still. Uh, there the, in terms of really getting, uh, top level opportunities to, to work in the sciences, you, you start at the graduate level and you get your master and your, or your, and or your PhD.
[00:17:23] Rori Rohlfs: You already had the strong background in geology, your. Getting into your actual field of, or you know, closer to your field of interest in like, yes.
[00:17:31] Dawn Wright: Not only getting into the field. Yeah. I was in an oceanography program to get an oceanography degree. So I'd finally arrived. Yeah.
[00:17:40] Rori Rohlfs: And at that point, as I understand, so you studied the, the sea floor and the landscape of the Tonga Trench.
[00:17:46] Dawn Wright: Yes, yes. Very well said Uhhuh.
[00:17:49] Rori Rohlfs: But at that time, you, you did not like go to the Tonga trench to study it. This is, you were using data that had been collected.
[00:17:56] Dawn Wright: Yes. Is that right? Yes.
[00:17:57] Rori Rohlfs: So would, would you say that this is maybe the start of. You are interested in data specifically,
[00:18:03] Dawn Wright: uh, with all the opportunities to go to see that Texas a and m had their own research vessel and uh, some students were able to actually.
Collect data for their thesis. But I had this interest in this part of the world, uh, in the Western Pacific, uh, owing to my, my time in Hawaii. And I had, uh, met, uh, people and, uh, learned about the cultures of Samoa and Fiji and Tonga. And so when I, uh, learned about the Tonga trench, uh, in a class, I thought, boy would I love to, to study that in some way.
And I found out about getting the data, the data being available. But, but that's part of the, the story, uh, that goes awry, uh, for me in terms of my experience at Texas a and m because I, I came in, uh, under the, the tutelage of a wonderful professor who wanted me to work with him, and he would've been a fantastic advisor, but he was a sedimentologist and I was not really interested in what he was, what he studied.
And, and so I am very diplomatic, uh. I asked him if I could switch, uh, advisors, and I asked another professor who was studying, uh, the, these areas that I was really interested in. He was, he studied the volcanoes of Hawaii, and, uh, he, he knew his emphasis was deeper, uh, deeper water and Pacific. Uh, and I loved his class, his introductory class.
And so I asked him if I could, uh, be his student. Uh, and he took me on as his first student. He was just out of, uh, his PhD program, uh, and he came to Texas from the University of Hawaii. And how was your experience working with him? I thought he was brilliant, but I think he was, uh, overrun by the, the pressures that are put on assistant professors, especially in high level, university, big university programs, the whole publisher parish.
Uh, yeah, it's, it's very rough. And, uh, there, there were no weekly meetings with him. There was no advising, uh, uh, he, I was pretty much left to my own devices.
[00:20:07] Rori Rohlfs: Okay. So kind of an old school academic style where it's kind of like you are. You are his student in air quotes, but really you're working very independently.
[00:20:17] Dawn Wright: So I was a fellowship student. I was not his research assistant. I didn't have a research assistantship with him. Uh, I don't know whether he had any other students, uh, at the time actually, I. I don't, I don't remember that because there was no, there was no cohort, there's no lab culture. There was none of that.
And I wanted to, uh, I didn't wanna give up on my study area, so I wandered over to the, uh, geology and geophysics department, a completely different department, but, uh, was related to oceanography because of the, uh, connection to ocean floor geology. There, there were a lot of marine geologists in this department.
I think I took a seminar class over in that department. That's probably how it started. So, so I went over there, uh, as a, to take that seminar and I met a couple of graduate students there who were actually working in the area that I was interested in, and I asked them for help. I. And they took me on, uh, as they were basically my major advisors they taught me everything I needed to know.
[00:21:18] Rori Rohlfs: You found your own mentors who
[00:21:20] Dawn Wright: I, I had to find my own mentors. Yeah.
[00:21:22] Rori Rohlfs: Which is, you know, honestly how it is so often. Yeah. Um, so you did this early in your masters? Yeah. Were
[00:21:29] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: were they Master's students or were they PhD students?
[00:21:31] Dawn Wright: They were PhD students. And they were, uh, close to, to finishing.
They were very senior, very advanced, very experienced, and very kind. Uh, they, they were both wonderful. They were also good friends with each other. So together, they, they helped me out and I, I've kept in touch with them, uh, over the years. They made it possible for me to put together a thesis. And, and I defended my thesis.
And, uh, I really didn't have much help from my committee either, when, now that I think of it,
[00:22:02] Rori Rohlfs: they just gave you a lot of rope. They, they, yeah. Like, but you made this thesis.
[00:22:06] Dawn Wright: I made the thesis.
[00:22:07] Rori Rohlfs: You like. You found your mentors, you learned the techniques, you figured out how to do this data analysis.
[00:22:13] Dawn Wright: What I was doing was a, uh, a geophysical analysis of the structure of the Tonga Trench, uh, because it changes its character.
It's a trench that curves, uh, around, uh, it's a boundary between two tectonic plates and it, there's some very interesting, uh, dynamics, uh, structural dynamics as this. As this feature, this scar in the ocean crust, um, makes this abrupt turn around this, this corner. And so I studied that, that particular area and came up with some conclusions and, uh, did the, uh, geophysical modeling.
Uh, they helped me to write the computer program, uh, for it and everything. And so I presented this and my committee passed me. But in my one-on-one, uh, after, after the defense. My advisor told me on behalf of the committee that it, well, you, you did this, you we're gonna pass you, but we don't think that you should continue in the discipline.
We, we think that, uh, you know, this, this was just, just adequate. So we're gonna pass you. But, uh, we wouldn't recommend that you go on for a PhD. We actually recommend that you maybe think about law school, or maybe getting an MBA get an MBA.
[00:23:28] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: That's so like you're different.
[00:23:31] Rori Rohlfs: You wanted to study this curvature of the con. I don't know. I'm just like, oh my God.
[00:23:34] Dawn Wright: It's pretty stunning. Yeah, I was pretty stunned and I was like, well, first of all. Thank you for passing me, but thank you also for not helping me at all,
[00:23:43] Rori Rohlfs: and thank, thank you for your first feedback on my science.
[00:23:45] Dawn Wright: Yeah, like that lit a fire in me though, in terms of, uh, it, it was wonderful to survive that, but I thought, oh my goodness, if I do continue on and get a PhD and have students of my own, I am going to take care. I'm gonna make sure that they do not have the same experience where they're not given this rope and, uh, and, and just tossed to their own devices. Uh, tossing in the wind, uh, uh, scrambling to find, uh, resources, uh, mentorship, mentor. The mentor would actually provide them. I'm a mentor. Yeah. I'm going to really, uh, work with them and give them what they need and be there for them.
Yeah. Uh, and that's the. That was actually the experience I had from my doctoral degree where I had an advisor like that who did support, who did that model and gave you the feedback and told you when exactly they thought you were off course.
[00:24:38] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: So after this happened, you became a marine tech. Did you have that job already lined up before this happened or is something that you had to find afterwards?
[00:24:47] Dawn Wright: It was beautiful serendipity because Texas a and m had just won this amazing contract to be the science operator for, uh, this global sea floor sampling program called the Ocean Drilling Program that had just happened, and they were looking for marine technicians just at the time that I was graduating.
So talk about being in the right place at the right time. So I thought, okay, you know, I have a master degree. They let me pass. I and I did good work. You're qualified. Yeah. And I'm qualified for this job and I applied for the job and immediately got it. So then I, it was, I didn't, we didn't know what a gap year was back then, but I ended up taking, uh, three years of a gap and working in the most amazing, wonderful, adventurous job that I could think of, and continuing to learn about geology and geophysics and rubbing shoulders with.
Some of the best, uh, uh, uh, in their field who came onto that ship and, and did expeditions getting the opportunity to travel, uh, as part of the marine technician team, the first expedition they sent me out on, uh was to Antarctica. So my first expedition was from, uh, Punta Ores Chile, uh, down to the We lc of Antarctica.
[00:26:02] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: How long was that trip?
[00:26:03] Dawn Wright: So all of these trips were two months. We worked 12 hour shifts, uh, uh, seven days a week on the ship. Wow. And rather than pay us over time. They gave us time off sea time. So, so we, everyone would, I mean if you're, if your port of call is the next port for me, were around the Indian Ocean, so our ports of call, were in Fremantle, Australia and, uh, Sri Lanka and, uh, ways to get to Africa you're going to travel. Yeah. Out to these amazing places. Uhhuh. So I did that for, for three years. Uh, and during that time I also had an opportunity to think about the next step, uh, also.
[00:26:42] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: Scientists would come on board then, and and you would be helping them? What? Collect data? Is that? What was your job?
[00:26:49] Dawn Wright: Yes. The technicians, uh, onboard this ship. They ran all of the laboratories. This ship was a floating marine geology and geophysics laboratory, so it was a drill ship, so they would core for, for sediments and rocks from the sea floor. In order to discern the history, uh, of the, the sea floor and really of the ocean and the planet at that time.
And instead of going back to land, to process all of that, all of those cores, they had all of the laboratories necessary to do the processing right there on the ship. So they needed technicians to. To run those samples, uh, in those various laboratories on the ship. And then here's also where I learned about data because my main job was as a data librarian and as a shipboard reports librarian, uh, on the ship.
So, so I managed, uh, all of that and, uh, really learned about it. Uh, I guess that was my, it could have been my first entry into data science, uh, certainly, uh, into scientific editing because I was also responsible for editing all of the reports coming from all of the various labs. Every time they would run samples, they would write up the results and, and I had to compile those reports.
And I also edited them in terms of. Uh, spelling and proper geologic, uh, term usage and just basic scientific editing, like a journal editing. So that was wonderful. Uh, a wonderful experience.
[00:28:16] Rori Rohlfs: Wow, that's so cool.
[00:28:18] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: I showed my kids one picture of you in the vehicle that you used to go to the deep, uh, the challenger deep, and we were all looking at this picture.
And then my son, who's eight years old, the first thing he noticed is that Snoopy?
[00:28:32] Dawn Wright: Yes.
[00:28:33] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: What was Snoopy doing in this picture?
[00:28:35] Dawn Wright: Oh, I always dive
[00:28:36] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: in the limiting factor.
[00:28:37] Dawn Wright: I always dive with Snoopy. Oh, so I, so all of the dives that I've done in the Alvin and the Pisces five and, and then in the limiting factor, I always have Snoopy with me. I'm a, I'm a Snoopy fan, so I always take him with me.
[00:28:52] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: Oh, that's, that's so great.
Well, actually, my kids ask some questions. They ask, what animals did you see? How long were you down there? Did you feel scared? What does it sound like? Is it hotter going down or hotter going up?
[00:29:05] Dawn Wright: So I, I can answer a couple of those.
[00:29:07] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: Okay.
[00:29:08] Dawn Wright: So in terms of how long we were down there, uh, it was a 10-hour dive. It took us four hours to descend to the bottom, and then we had two and a half hours to, to do a survey using an instrument that we are using, but also to observe. Uh, as much biology and geology as we could, and then another, uh, three and a half hours to come back up.
And we did see, we were, we were nearly seven miles, uh, deep, uh, in the deepest. Part of the ocean. And I think the people are surprised to find that there are creatures that live, uh, at that depth, that those crushing pressures.
[00:29:45] Rori Rohlfs: I mean, that is so wild.
[00:29:46] Dawn Wright: It is. It's wild. And they are amazing creatures. We mainly saw these little amphipods, they're like little shrimp and uh, little sea cucumbers. They're very simple creatures. So there were no fish, there's no no sharks, there's no kraken, there's nothing like that. Uh, those higher-order creatures. Uh, as far as we know, the deepest depth for fish is around 8,000 or 9,000 meters at most.
[00:30:14] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: Wow. So people must be discovering so many new species as well, right at that depth?
[00:30:18] Dawn Wright: Yes. Uh, now I was only on one dive and the species that we saw had already been discovered by others, but we did have a, uh, another robot with us that was positioned around 7,400 meters. Uh, so it was up shallower on the wall of the trench above us. Uh, and its video cameras captured a, uh, a beautiful pectus profunda cola jellyfish.
And apparently, that sighting of that jellyfish was the deepest that that particular species had been cited. But it looked like a little alien spaceship.
[00:30:57] Rori Rohlfs: And what about the geology? What did you, I mean, is your interest as a sea floor geologist, like what did you manage to learn?
[00:31:05] Dawn Wright: Well, the, I was excited to be there because this is one of the, the major collision zones on the planet in terms of one plate slamming into another and then diving beneath that plate.
So this is a place where the Pacific plate slams into the, uh, Philippine sea plate. And I say slams because this is an area of earthquake activity. You know, there are consequences for, for such a collision. Uh, the collision rate is, uh, a little, a little faster than your, your fingernails grow. So in terms of geologic motion, that's, that's pretty aggressive.
That's very fast. So it isn't very, it's a very aggressive part of the sea floor. And as a result of this collision. We saw this, these vast fields of boulders, basically these are chunks of the Pacific plate that have been scraped off as the plate makes the, that it's turned downward into the earth to to disappear in the Earth, into the Earth.
So it was very exciting for me to see these huge chunks of wow salt and. A little bit of, uh, the mantle, the earth's mantle, uh, is revealed there in those rocks.
[00:32:15] Rori Rohlfs: Did you ever feel scared when you were?
[00:32:17] Dawn Wright: No. No. Uh, for me, a submersible is a scientific instrument. It's a scientific tool, and I had had these other dives and this dive just happened to be deeper, the deepest, and it was longer because of that.
But it was for for me, it was, I don't wanna say just another dive, but I was there on a scientific mission.
[00:32:36] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: Nice. That's reassuring.
[00:32:38] Rori Rohlfs: And do you think that some of this, I mean, incredible exploration and adventure through science that you've done was connected to your mom's bold and ambitious moves in her career?
[00:32:51] Dawn Wright: I think so, yeah. I, I'd like to think that it had a very nice role in it. And again, as frightened as she was whenever I went to see, she was always completely behind me and completely fascinated and interested in everything and, uh, very proud.
[00:33:08] Rori Rohlfs: Yeah, I mean, that's beautiful. That's what we all need. We could keep talking to you for hours, literally.
It would be very easy. But we're getting close to the end of our time, so I want to ask you. About a little segment that we often do called Revise and resubmit, where we ask our guests if there's anything in their career or in science culture that, looking back, they would revise and resubmit.
[00:33:30] Dawn Wright: That's a wonderful question, and I would probably revise and resubmit on self-care.
[00:33:35] Rori Rohlfs: Okay.
[00:33:35] Dawn Wright: Especially as a woman, uh, in science, especially. Maybe as a, as a black woman. Uh, but I came close to literally burning out on a couple of occasions throughout my career. And if I, I probably would've gotten a personal trainer Okay. Uh, a little earlier in my career to keep me on track, uh, in terms of, uh.
Getting the proper rest and nutrition. I, I think all of us, when we're young, we think we're, uh, invincible or, or, or you feel like you're invincible. And, uh, I was on a mission to, to just do everything that I could when I could do it. If I could do that over, I would be more measured in that area.
[00:34:13] Rori Rohlfs: Take a little break. Take care of your body and yourself. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for sharing that wisdom. Dr. Wright, Dawn Wright, thank you so much for joining us today. I have learned so much from your experiences and your wisdom, and I am gonna take all of these ideas with me as I go tell them to my kids who are fans of yours.
Uh, thank you again.
[00:34:35] Dawn Wright: Oh, you are a wonderful interviewer, Rory, you and Emilia. This was really a delight. Thank you so much.
[00:34:41] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: Thank you so much. Thanks for listening.
[00:34:44] Rori Rohlfs: Check out the show notes for some links to Dawn's recent book, mapping The Deep and some of her other research work.
[00:34:50] Emilia Huerta-Sanchez: This episode was produced and edited by Maribel Quezada Smith. Sound Engineering by Keegan Stromberg. Special thanks to Dr. Dawn Wright. The hosts of Science Wise are Rori and me, Emilia Huerta-Sanchez.