Dr. Dawn J. Wright is Chief Scientist at Esri, the privately held geospatial technology company whose ArcGIS platform is widely adopted in offshore energy and mineral exploration. Her work on seafloor mapping, habitat modeling, risk assessment, and marine spatial planning supplies many of the baseline data layers and analytic workflows that offshore-mineral consultants reference when evaluating prospective deep-sea-mining sites and designing environmental-management plans. She is also the first black person to reach Challenger Deep, bringing both scientific insight and lived experience from the ocean’s greatest depths to the debate over responsible seabed resource use.

Born on 15 April 1961, Wright earned a B.S. in geology from Wheaton College in Illinois, an M.S. in oceanography from Texas A&M University, and a Ph.D. in physical geography and marine geology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She began her career as a seagoing marine technician with the Ocean Drilling Program and in 1991 became the first black woman to dive in the research submersible Alvin. Wright joined Oregon State University in 1995 as professor of geography and oceanography.

Appointed Esri’s Chief Scientist in October 2011, she now strengthens the scientific foundation of the company’s software, represents Esri to research organizations, and leads flagship projects such as the Ecological Marine Units, a three-dimensional global ocean map that merges physical, chemical, and biological variables to delineate habitat zones. The EMU data cube in ArcGIS Pro is increasingly referenced by offshore minerals consultants to compare candidate license blocks with regional reference conditions and to prioritize biodiversity surveys.

Wright is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She serves on the strategic advisory group of Seabed 2030, the United Nations endorsed initiative to map the entire seafloor by 2030. Data she collected during her Challenger Deep dive in July 2022 filled gaps in areas deeper than ten thousand meters and will feed directly into that global grid.

While she supports a precautionary approach to commercial extraction, Wright’s outreach emphasizes providing regulators and industry partners with the geospatial evidence needed to decide when, where, and how any future mining could proceed with minimal ecological risk.