Dawn Wright
Dawn Jeannine Wright (born April 15, 1961) is an American geographer and oceanographer. She is a leading authority in the application of geographic information system (GIS) technology to the field of ocean and coastal science, and played a key role in creating the first GIS data model for the oceans. Wright is Chief Scientist of the Environmental Systems Research Institute (aka Esri). She has also been a professor of geography and oceanography at Oregon State University since 1995 and is a former Oregon Professor of the Year as named by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Wright was the first African-American female to dive to the ocean floor in the deep submersible ALVIN. On July 12, 2022 she became the first and only Black person to dive to Challenger Deep, the deepest point on Earth, and to successfully operate a sidescan sonar at full-ocean depth. Education Wright earned a Bachelor of Science cum laude in geology from Wheaton College in 1983, a Master of Science in oceanography from Texas A&M University in 1986, and an Individual Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Physical Geography and Marine Geology from University of California,