Working with Dinosaurs - A Q&A with Kathryn Abbott, Science Educator, Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontolgy
At Dinosaur Trips, we’re not just interested in dinosaurs and prehistoric life, we’re also interested in the history of paleontology, the people who work in dinosaur museums, and the folks across generations who have shaped our understanding and appreciation for prehistoric life, as well as the incredible adventures that are tied to some of the most exciting discoveries in paleontology history.
Which begs the question: How do you get one of these dinosaur jobs anyway?
To learn more, Dinosaur Trips founder & director Zach Vanasse is chatting with people from all across the dinosaur research spectrum to learn more about what it’s like working in this riveting field.
For this edition of ‘Working With Dinosaurs,’ Zach got to talk to Kathryn Abbott, a science educator at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Alberta a.k.a. the world’s greatest dinosaur museum. Dinosaur Trips and our guests got the chance to quickly meet Kathryn during our Summer 2023 Badlands & Beyond expedition and we were excited to learn more about her unorthodox path to working with dinosaurs.
Zach Vanasse: Let’s start at the logical beginning here; where did your interest in paleontology and dinosaurs begin?
Kathryn Abbott: When I was a kid, my grandfather lived in a town that was very close to Drumheller, Alberta. And he would often take me and my brother to the museum whenever we would visit him. And back then, in the ‘90s, the (Royal Tyrrell) Museum wasn’t very big. It was pretty much just one room full of dinosaur bones.
But it was still incredible for me. Being three years old and having the ability to see these incredible creatures and realizing that they were in fact real, which was something that blew my mind as a kid. My grandfather would let us run off, at the detriment of the docents of the museum.
But for us, it was amazing because we could go wherever we wanted. They’d often find me laying on the floor looking up at the plesiosaur in the Bear Paw Sea room. I was completely enthralled. After meeting that plesiosaur, I always knew that I had a passion for it and I always knew that I wanted to do something related to dinosaurs, be that be a paleontologist or a marine biologist or a marine paleontologist.
So my original spark started right here in Drumheller, where I am now. And I always wanted to come back to work at the museum. Everything in my life moving forward from those moments was building myself to come back to Drumheller and work at this incredible museum that originally inspired me and my love for paleo and prehistoric marine reptiles.
And as I understand it, your path back to Drumheller and the Royal Tyrrell Museum was not exactly conventional.
Yeah. Oh my goodness. So, my path is a little bit different than most. I guess you might get that a lot when you are having these conversations with paleontologists and people working in dinosaur research and science education.
Haha, yeah, it does seem like everyone I’ve spoken to has found a little bit of a convoluted way to working with dinosaurs.
And it’s not easy. It’s not easy for people to get into paleontology and it’s especially not easy for women to get into paleontology. When I showed interest in doing a career in paleontology, I was told by many people that there’s no women in paleontology.
People would say things like: “You’re not going to get a job. It’s boring. It’s really hard to get into. It’s not worth it. Go and do something that you can actually use.”
As a 20-something going into university, I was extremely discouraged and I had no idea that the University of Alberta had a paleontology program. So my first couple of years of university I spent working on a degree in something called new media. My focus was on 3D scanning, 3D printing, and then radio and television. And, that opened some doors for me.
I also took a couple of years in travel and tourism as well because I wanted to be connected to the paleontology world the best that I could. So with six years of education and travel & tourism, and media under my belt, I moved to Victoria where I started studying paleontology independently through the University of Alberta. But while I was doing that, I also had a job working in radio and television where I actually got the opportunity to have a radio show called Dinosaur Facts with Kathryn Abbott.
No kidding!
And whenever there was dinosaur news, I got to excitedly talk about it on the radio. Vancouver Island is actually a paleontology hub; there is a lot of material out there. So working in radio and television, I gained the attention of a private fossil lab that cleaned and restored dinosaur bones for display and I got a job there as an educator.
Eventually I got a job doing their 3D scanning. I was their 3D scanning technician for quite a long time and as that ended a position opened up at the museum here in Drumheller; the Royal Tyrrell Museum.
I transitioned into that role really easily because they needed somebody who knew a lot about dinosaurs and a lot about prehistoric creatures. It was just the perfect fit. And after only being there for six months, I transitioned into a full-time position and now I have my job at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in education; talking to kids and the public about dinosaurs, and I’m absolutely in love with it. It’s the best possible job I could have.
So you finally made that move to Drumheller you’d always wanted to since you were a kid.
Yeah. It was really hard leaving Vancouver Island to move to the prairies in the cold. I really enjoyed my job working in the fossil lab in Victoria. And I really, really loved my job working in radio. It was a big change when all of that finally came to a close and I moved to Alberta. But it was an exciting change and I’m happy I did it because now I’m finally living the dream that three-year-old Kathryn couldn’t even fathom or imagine that she would actually be here and I could see my Plesiosaur every single day.
I feel like I’m kind of in the same position, where I’m now doing this job that I took this winding road to get to. The five-year-old me would be like “Oh my God, this is what we actually wound up doing?” To have made paleontology and dinosaurs a big part of the job description? It’s pretty cool that it’s wound up this way for both of us.
Yeah, it’s a dream come true for kids who, back in the day, it didn’t really seem feasible for us to become paleontologists, but to still be part of the paleo community.
I think the best part of my job is when I meet the kids who are really, really hardcore into paleontology. And you can tell that they’re the nerdy kids. The other kids might make fun of them, but they’re really passionate and they know that they want to do this.
And they haven’t lost that passion yet. I love helping them ignite that passion and motivate them to move forward. Because I think that as a kid, I really, really needed somebody to be like; “You can do this, I believe in you. I think that this is something that you should do.”
But I’m happy with the way that my life went and I’m happy with the direction that it’s going. I am not a paleontologist. I do not have a doctorate in paleontology and that’s the big distinction. I have nine years of education under my belt, but I am not a paleontologist.
So talk to me a little bit about 3D scanning and its effects on paleontology.
Sure. So, 3D scanning is, in my mind, the future of paleontology. It creates accessibility and it creates information sharing that would not have been possible before. For example, if I scan a bone, it can be done in an hour. That can then be uploaded to a computer. It can be fixed and modeled using software. Then it can be emailed or sent to a paleontologist who lives on the other side of the world.
Now we have this flow of information that we didn’t have previously and we also have the ability to 3D print these things. Say you have a several-hundred-pound sauropod bone. Like a giant leg bone of a dinosaur that you would not be able to move by yourself. You scan that and you send that to a paleontologist in Australia and suddenly they are able to study it too.
And they could 3D print one that could weigh half as much. This is something that we’re going to see more of. I think it also helps fill in the gap of the desire for people to own fossils that are really important.
Nowadays, 3D printers are getting inexpensive, so suddenly you can print off that T-rex toe claw or tooth and you can leave the real bones to science.
That’s really exciting. I think most people don’t have an understanding of what it’s like to work in a museum. Especially one like the Royal Tyrrell, which is about as big as it gets in the paleontology world. What’s that experience been like for you?
So the Royal Tyrrell Museum is the world’s largest paleontology specific museum. And there’s only one other one in the entire world, and that’s actually up in northern Alberta; the Philip J. Currie Museum, which is also a very lovely museum.
Dinosaur Trips guests actually got to experience both last summer for our Alberta Badlands & Beyond trip, and we’ll be doing so again this year. Both are really great experiences.
Yes, it’s a very lovely museum they’ve got up there. But working at the Royal Tyrrell Museum is like a dream come true. It’s like every single day you get to go to work and you’re living a fantasy that you’re completely surrounded by these ancient things.
The thing I love best about my museum is that when you sign up for a program, I can put a fossil in your hand and you get to hold a piece of a prehistoric creature. For me, there’s no better feeling in the world than asking a kid what their favorite dinosaur is and you have it in the cupboard. You can hand it over to them and they actually get to hold a piece of their favorite dinosaur. I love having the ability to give that to people. I think that’s really special.
One thing that I found compelling about the Royal Tyrrell Museum is that there’s not a ton of museums out there where you walk out of the museum, cross the parking lot, and you’re right into the same kind of area where paleontologists are actually finding fossils.
Yeah. One other that I can think of is the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. That museum is in the tar pits.
Yes! I’m excited to visit that museum during our Dinosaur Trips exploration of Arizona & California this spring.
Oh man, it’s great. I enjoyed it very much when I was down there in Los Angeles; it’s the best.
And likewise, one of the best things about the Royal Tyrrell Museum is it’s a holistic experience because, not only are you getting the museum and the badlands, you’re getting the whole dinosaur town experience.
Because when you come to Drumheller, you get to see the world’s largest T-rex statue. Then you walk around downtown and there’s dinosaur sculptures everywhere. You go to some of the little shops in town and everything is dinosaur themed. And we have a company in town that makes dinosaur-themed pop. And there’s a microbrewery too that does dinosaur-themed ale. And then there’s also a couple other businesses in town that really lean into the whole paleo experience.
Speaking of an epic dinosaur experience, I wanted to ask how you got involved with the documentary ‘Why Dinosaurs?’
‘Why Dinosaurs?’ is a film project started by a dad and his son. They started it off as just a father/son talking to people about dinosaurs kind of project. And it just ballooned and exploded from there. They just started reaching out to more and more people in the community and asking them about why people love dinosaurs. Like, what is it about dinosaurs that people find so fascinating and why is there this incredible following? They’ve been working on this project for years.
And finally, this year, they had their premiere in Los Angeles and it was a whole event. They invited all of the cast. It was amazing. It seemed like every single person in the world that I admire was there. It was really incredible.
How I became involved in it was, back when I was working in Victoria, they reached out to me through social media. This was during COVID. And it was challenging to plan something like that at that time. They had hired a camera person from Victoria to film the interview and the filmmakers were just on Zoom screen on a little pedestal in the back asking me questions from the little screen. And the camera guy filmed the interview live. I had no idea what I was getting into and I had no idea what it would turn into.
But I said yes and it’s been the most incredible ride to have been even considered or be involved with this wonderful film. I think that it’s going to be one of the best paleontology films of our time. It really explores why people love dinosaurs. They got to talk to some of the most incredible people and hear their stories and learn about why this community is so vibrant and why this community is so interesting.
I think I was in tears the entire time I was watching the film. There’s a trailer that they put out on their social media and you could see me in the front and I was just like completely in tears.
I’m really excited to get to see it myself at some point, and hopefully very soon.
Alright, one thing I need to ask before our time is up is; if you could go anywhere in the world to experience dinosaurs with Dinosaur Trips, where would you want to go?
I’d probably want to go to Germany for Solnhofen Quarry and to check out some of the museums in Germany, because there are some dinosaurs there that I’ve seen and worked on. It would be cool to see them again.
Otherwise I would have said Morocco, which I’m actually going to in the spring with my colleague, Nizar Ibrahim. Hopefully to dig up some Spinosaurus bones.
Awesome. Finally, is there any advice you’d give to anyone who wants to get into this whole world of working with dinosaurs?
I think what I’d say is don’t get discouraged if people are telling you; “Well, paleontology is for boys, and there’s no jobs, and it’s really hard. It’s like, life is hard. But if you want something badly enough, then just do it. Just go for it.”
I wish that somebody would have just said; “Kathryn, just do it.”
And I think that what I do as a science educator is I try to motivate young girls to just follow their passion, follow their dreams, and it’ll be worth it in the end, I promise.