Dawn Wright

Dawn Wright (@deepseadawn) is Chief Scientist of the Environmental Systems Research Institute (aka Esri), a world-leading geographic information system (GIS) software and environmental data science company. Dawn is also a Professor of Geography and Oceanography at Oregon State University. She has authored or co-authored nearly 200 articles and 14 books on geographic information science, as well as deep-ocean mapping and conservation, while also participating in dozens of oceanographic research expeditions around the world. In 2022, Dawn became the first Black person and only the fifth woman to visit Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean, the deepest and most unexplored place on planet Earth. 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, she earned her B.S. in Geology from Wheaton College (Illinois) and her doctorate in Physical Geography and Marine Geology from UC Santa Barbara. Dawn enjoys road cycling, 18th-century pirates, building with LEGO bricks, her golden retriever Riley, and SpongeBob Squarepants.