Dawn J. Wright

---

_{Image Courtesy of Esri}

---

Growing up in the Hawaiian Islands, Dr. Dawn Wright knew from the age of eight that she wanted to be an oceanographer, but it wasn’t until high school that she narrowed down her options to geological oceanography.

After earning her doctorate in geography and marine geology, she joined the faculty at Oregon State University and was promoted to full professor in 2002. In her research she follows two disciplines to deepen our understanding of the ocean floor. As a geologist she studies mid-ocean ridges found deep underwater focusing on fissures, or openings, that can act as passageways for magma and seawater hoping to determine their origins. These fissures provide important clues to the nature of volcanic eruptions and to the birth and death of hydrothermal vents. Wright studies photos, sonar images, and videos of the seafloor taken remotely as well as descending to the floor aboard the research submarine ALVIN to observe these openings firsthand.

As a geographer she works developing new and better ways of displaying, analyzing, and interpreting the data she and others collect using geographic information systems or GIS. GIS is software that allows the creation of maps from this type of data that can not only show geological information like location of fissures, but could also show changes in currents, the distribution of different organisms, or variations in water chemistry and temperature.

As a leading authority on GIS, she helps to write software which can process oceanographic data and eases the transition of the data into GIS. This expertise led to Wright’s 2011 appointment as the Chief Scientist of the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri) the world’s leading geographic information system software research and development company. Two years later she gave up her tenured position at OSU to focus completely on her work as Esri. but is still affiliated with the school as a courtesy professor.

In 2022, Deep Sea Dawn was the first African American to ever dive into the deepest part of the ocean, known as Challenger Deep, and will be sharing her experience in her book Mapping the Deep: Innovation, Exploration, and the Dive of a Lifetime.

Written by Angela Goad

Sources:

Esri Appoints Dawn J. Wright as Chief Scientist

Welcome to the Cyberworld of “Deepsea Dawn”

Mapping the Deep: Innovation, Exploration, and the Dive of a Lifetime

LinkedIn: Dawn Wright, PhD

Meet Dawn

See Also:

Twitter: @deepseadawn

The History Makers: Dawn Wright