Mapping the Deep

As chief scientist of Esri, Dawn Wright aids in strengthening the scientific foundation for Esri software and services, while also representing Esri to the scientific community. A specialist in marine geology, with record-setting submersible dives in Alvin (to the East Pacific Rise), Pisces V, and the Limiting Factor (to Challenger Deep), she has also authored and contributed to some of the most definitive literature on marine GIS. Dawn is an elected member of both the US National Academy of Sciences and the US National Academy of Engineering, as well as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, The Oceanography Society, and the Geological Society of America. She holds lifetime achievement awards from the American Association of Geographers, the Geological Society of America, and WINGS World Quest Women of Discovery. Dawn was included on The Independent Climate 100 List 2024, recognizing the world’s foremost environmentalists. Dawn is also professor of geography and oceanography at Oregon State University, where she was named Oregon Professor of the Year in 2007. She has coauthored several books for Esri Press, including Ocean Solutions, Earth Solutions and the GIS for Science series.Kathryn D. Sullivan is a geologist, oceanographer, and former NASA astronaut. She was the first American woman to walk in space, the first woman to dive to Challenger Deep, and the first person to do both.

"When Dawn Wright submitted her master’s thesis in the 1980s — a geophysical survey of the Pacific Ocean’s Tonga Trench using sea-floor data collected by others — it was grudgingly approved. But her professor advised her afterwards that she had no future in oceanography and should consider a non-scientific profession.…Today, she is a distinguished oceanographer and chief scientist at Esri, a software company in Redlands, California, renowned for creating geographical information systems. In 2022, she became the fifth woman and the first Black person to visit Challenger Deep, the deepest place on Earth’s sea bed, nearly 11,000 metres beneath the Pacific Ocean’s surface…. Her charming life story, with many appealing images, is written by four Esri Press colleagues in collaboration with Wright. It shows how, in her words, “we can turn the unknown deep into the known deep”.

• ForewordChapter 1: The diveChapter 2: Deepsea DawnChapter 3: The mysteries of Challenger DeepChapter 4: The five deepsChapter 5: No limitsChapter 6: Why we map the deep (and why you should care)Chapter 7: Charting a hidden worldChapter 8: Diving deeperAcknowledgmentsAdditional ResourcesCreditsAbout the Author