All her life, Mary Higby Schweitzer has been fascinated with
dinosaurs. She announced a desire to grow up to be a paleontologist
when she was only five. Of course, childhood dreams rarely
turn into reality. A native of Helena, Montana, Schweitzer
studied speech therapy at Utah State University, and after
earning her B.S., she moved back to Montana, got married and
had three children. She later went back to school to earn
a teaching certificate so she could become a high school science
teacher, finishing the Montana State University program in
December 1988. Then her career took a turn. With several months
to kill before the new school year started, she took a paleontology
course for fun – and found her childhood passion reignited.
Schweitzer later returned to school, earning her Ph.D. in
biology from Montana State University in 1995. Along the way,
and in the several years since, she has established herself
as a creative and resourceful scientist. Her research on the
world’s first sample of soft dinosaur tissue has demanded
the development of new investigative methods and criteria,
crossing a variety of disciplines and requiring collaboration
with team of gifted researchers in other areas. As a result,
she, and her work, are unique in the scientific community.
Schweitzer is an associate professor in the Department of
Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State
University in Raleigh, NC. She holds a joint appointment at
the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences.
About
Mary Schweitzer