Working With Dinosaurs - A Q&A with Amy Atwater, Interim Director of Paleontology & Director of Development, Dinosaur Ridge
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 Amy Atwater, interim director of paleontology & director of membership, Dinosaur Ridge, co-founder of the Mary Anning’s Revenge blog and co-host of the Weird & Dead podcast, and the leader or our 2025 ‘In Mary Anning’s Footsteps‘ all-women Jurassic Coast, UK adventure!
Zach Vanasse: First off, let me just say how thrilled and honoured I am that you are leading our May 2025 UK’s Jurassic Coast all-women adventure. I’m very jealous I won’t get to take part in this one.
Amy Atwater: Thank you!
So let’s just start this Q&A with where your interest in paleontology began.
So I grew up in Oregon on the West coast of the United States and we do not have dinosaur fossils in Oregon.
We have a few like classic bloat and float specimens, but Oregon was underwater during the time of the dinosaurs. But what is really exciting about Oregon is that we have a Cenozoic fossil record. And so I grew up going to the fossil beds in Eastern Oregon and the John Day fossil beds where we just have literally the highest density of fossil dogs anywhere in the world.
We’ve got thunder beasts, we’ve got really weird primates, even saber-toothed cats, well false saber-toothed cats, and oreodonts, you know, these sheep-, pig-, and camel-like mammals. So I just became really transfixed with all of these ancient mammals that were in my own backyard and under my feet.
Plus, I always had a love for all animals. It just made for a natural connection to get curious about the evolution of some of my favorites. You know, zoo and household animals and learning that there was a fossil record that told this story of mammal evolution right there was really cool.
I went to a summer camp when I was 14 and that was three weeks of paleontology in Eastern Oregon. I loved every second. I was just dirty and filthy, very rarely showered. And after that, it was like, cool, this is what I want to do!
We talked about climate change, evolution, and bigger picture concepts that we can use fossils to help us understand. I was totally hooked. It was straight laser focus from there.
That’s interesting because 14 is the age that – for someone like myself who was a big dinosaur kid – that interest kind of fell off for a period of my life, but you got to go to a camp and double down on it!
Yup, I was very fortunate that I had parents who could send me to those camps. And then I went and worked at Arches National Park when I was 18. And I like to joke that that’s when I went through my dinosaur phase. That I went through it as an 18 year old instead of like an eight year old because it was the first time that I was surrounded by dinos and I just get jazzed about whatever paleontology is around me.
I like stromatolites. I like invertebrates. I like dinos. I like all of it. As long as I can go see, touch and feel it, and, ideally, find it. And so then I went through a major dinosaur phase when I was working in Utah and did my evening programs on the dinosaurs of Utah.
Take me through taking that leap to make this your career.
Oh, gosh. Remember when you’re so young and you just know everything and you just see it all so clear? I just was just like; “No, it’s going to happen.”
And luckily I was already working with some of the university folks in my hometown in Oregon. Then the ‘08-’09 economic crisis happened. So instead of going out of state to school, like I thought it was going to do, I stayed right home in my own backyard. I went to school at the University of Oregon, which means I already had a bunch of connections with folks; paleontologists in the geology department.
That really kind of helped facilitate and fast track, if you will, into opportunities. So myself and my cohort of other undergrads, we were all treated very similar to like a graduate student would be and encouraged to submit abstracts to conferences and present at conferences as like an 18 or 19 year old.
I started my first research project – which my first publication came out – as a 20 year old! I was also very headstrong and driven, as well as grateful for the opportunity.
And networking was very important. I hit up Jim Kirkland, who is the state paleontologist, and I was like; “Hey, we chatted at a conference once, can I come dig with you in Utah?” And he said sure! So I’m pretty happy that I was outgoing and willing to just try things.
Some people ghosted me and I never heard from them, and that’s fine too. But some people gave me a chance and I’m really grateful for that.
Once you’d finished your studies, when did it become apparent to you that this was going to be the career path?
I feel like I had more of a drive to be very assured that paleo was my future when I was 18-20, that kind of age. But to be honest, even today I have my moments of doubt about being in this field. Because paleo is a very competitive field. There’s not very many positions and it’s tough to be a woman in this field. Whether you want to admit it or not, you’re facing some uphill battles and it doesn’t do you any favors to be like me and to be loud and obnoxious about it. I’ve just not been willing to settle for going unseen. I’m not willing to not be seen for what I’m worth.
Then I landed my first position at Dinosaur Ridge where I didn’t have paleontology in my title. And even as the director of development and membership, I still saw that as a way to be a steward for fossil resources by bringing in donors, funds, and members to help protect these fossils at the number one dinosaur track site in the United States!
This job has felt like coming home again to remind me that no, I still love paleo, even if there can be people who can kind of get in your way and in your path.
But I’ve always loved paleo and it loves me.
I think that’s a really good lead into my next line of questions, which is about this Jurassic Coast, UK trip that you’re leading for us in May 2025: In Mary Anning’s Footsteps. A trip to get the dudes out of the way. A “dinosaurs eat man… woman inherit the earth” kind of deal.
Right! Exactly! Oh, God. I love that quote. That was one I definitely got a sticker of right away.
So I’m here in Colorado and up at CU Boulder. There was an early paleontologist/geologist here. Her name was Annie Alexander and she was – I don’t think she was openly a lesbian, but it was very clear that she was a queer. And this is, you know, turn of the century, early, early 1900s kind of stuff. And she has this plaque at CU Boulder that literally says, “Annie Alexander, she found men to be a nuisance on her arduous field work.” End quote.
Ha! That’s so good. I feel like I need to put that quote in our brochure.
Right!? That’s why I’m very excited about this opportunity. Because Mary Anning – while she is now seen as the mother of paleontology and her story is more well known – I would argue that we still don’t know the breadth of her discoveries, in part because of how much has been lost to time and history.
Even though she is definitely having a moment where people are finally recognizing how critical she was, the fact is that her name was erased from her fossil discoveries. The fact that men took credit for her work and did not include her on any publications or in museum notes. She wasn’t allowed to participate in scientific conferences. So we will never know how much she did because that’s been lost to time. And that’s sad.
I mean she found the first complete Ichthyosaur, along with her brother, when she was like 11 years old. When she found the first complete plesiosaur she was uneducated. She was completely self taught. She figured out anatomy by dissecting sea creatures there in Lyme Regis. She figured out fossil poop before anybody else. I mean, she was obviously brilliant.
Unfortunately, I still see that a lot in current day sciences where there are young girls who want to do paleo and STEM fields just as much as little boys.
I don’t see it as a problem of getting young girls interested in the sciences, whether it’s paleontology or otherwise. It’s about facilitating a safe career path for them once they do dedicate themselves to their interests.
The statistics suggest that girls and boys are both interested in STEM up until about seventh or eighth grade. And then that’s when there’s so many societal things that start telling young women that they can’t pursue the sciences. And it’s in large part simply because there isn’t a strong representation of women in STEM, because we don’t take good care of women who are already in science.
So that’s what I really like to draw attention to. I think trips like ours are a great way to facilitate that knowledge and that discussion to recognize that women are paleontologists, that we are scientists. Or that even if we aren’t in science, that this kind of thing, paleontology, can be a hobby or a passion for women too!
I think that’s very well said and a great way to kick off the kind of camaraderie that’s going to be built on this trip.
In addition to this being an all-women adventure, what are you most excited about experiencing as you walk in Mary Annining’s footsteps along the Jurassic Coast?
Well first off, I fully predict that I will be crying everywhere. I’m just an emotional person. When I found this very rare fossil lemur in Wyoming some 10 years ago on the outcrop, I just cried in front of all of these people. They were like; “Are you okay?” And I was like; “Yeah. How are you not crying right now?!”
Mary Anning statue, Lyme Regis | By MarikaReinholds
I fully suspect it’s going to be very much a pilgrimage of sorts. My name is Atwater; I have a lot of ancestry that is from Great Britain. And I’ve been obsessed with Mary Anning since I was a teenager. Finally being able to walk in her footsteps and see the same sites that she would have seen, I can’t even begin to explain how meaningful that’s going to be. To really experience it and feel that much more connected, not only to her, but what she represents, what she represents for me and my journey.
And whether or not she would sign off on that endorsement, we’ll never know. But, she really does mean a lot, a lot to me.
Whenever I’ve struggled, I have thought about her quotes about her struggles. While sometimes that gets me sad because that means women have been struggling in paleo for like 200 years, it it also is a sense of connection, camaraderie, and belonging and understanding that you don’t always get [in this field], so that’s going to be really important.
There will be some folks who are coming to this from another angle and maybe discovering who you are through Dinosaur Trips. Where can they learn a little more about you and your connection to Mary Annining?
Well I hope they’re okay with some weird blog posts! I got really into Mary Anning’s story when I read the Remarkable Creatures book my step grandma gave me. I just tore through it. It was amazing.
And then when I was a senior at the University of Oregon, my friend Meaghan from summer camp was also starting her PhD at the same time, so we decided to live together. And while we knew each other, we weren’t really super close.
Still, we moved in together. And at the same time we had a professor at the University of Oregon who was known to not be a super great human. He has since been fired for some of his behavior. He used to make really inappropriate comments to me. And so at this time, Meaghan and I started to really see the uglier side of paleontology.
But we really love fossils! So we thought, let’s just do our thing. All we want to do is to be left alone to do our research. So let’s do our thing. That really just inspired us to create a blog where we shared our experiences as women in paleontology – or as I should say – as paleontologists who happen to have a uterus.
We were trying to figure out the right name and I just thought: “Oh, Mary Anning’s Revenge. Because, again, Mary Anning did not get credit for so much of her work, and that’s also what we were beginning to experience, and something that we continue to experience throughout our careers.
It was really a place to talk about underrepresented groups in paleontology and our own connection; specifically to being women and creating a platform. We didn’t want to shy around some of these topics. We really wanted to address things head on. Some of our earliest blog posts were about how the name on your resume can very much affect whether or not you’re hired or not for an opportunity. And that’s not just if it’s a female name. It can also be for people of color in that case too.
So just going into those topics and our own anecdotes, and we also just love weird stuff. So then we would also feature things like awesome dead shit. That concept kind of fueled us in our current project, Weird and Dead, our podcast, where we tell evolution’s most embarrassing and bizarre stories.
It’s a really fun podcast, for those who haven’t listened!
Thanks! It’s a little bit less bash you over the head with the feminist stuff than the blog. But we still get into it. I can’t help it. I am who I am, but it’s a little more subtle in that department. And it lets us be the paleontologists that we want to be. It lets us be the nerdy weirdos that we want to be.
We don’t want it to be constantly connected to our gender and our gender identities. We wanted it to be something like what a man in paleo gets to do, you know. Most white dudes in paleo don’t have to be on social media. They don’t have to have broader impacts. They don’t have to have a side hustle. They don’t have to represent some underrepresented groups.
I’ve listened to some paleo podcasts where male researchers just get to talk about their research the whole time. But anytime a woman is on, it’s always, “Oh, what about this book? You wrote about women in science and this series you did.” And so women have to spend a good half of their time talking about things that men just don’t have to talk about when we’re just trying to draw some attention to those issues and level the playing field.
Final question on the trip itself and more specifically about you as the leader of this trip. As the trip leader, what do you think you bring to the overall experience?
I have been told, in my experience as a park ranger and facilitating tours of collections at former positions I’ve had, that I’m a very passionate and animated speaker.
So I will be bringing that passion, that enthusiasm. I do get sentimental. I am constantly making connections about the significance and the importance of how special a moment is. I really want to be in the moment with other women on this trip. I want us to be able to sit down, take a deep breath, and literally look at each other and be like: “Can you believe we’re here right now?”
I will bring passion. I will bring, oh my gosh, so many anecdotes! I’ve worked on all sorts of different fossils and groups. So if guests want to talk about anything fossiliferous, I am down for the discussion. Plus I love the outdoors and I love hiking.
Completely agree. And for anyone who is wondering about what kind of trip leader you’ll be and what kind of person you are outside of this Q&A, I think both the podcast and the blog are a great place to start. I think people can get a real good sense of who you are there. It certainly impressed me. I was a fan of the blog first and thought to myself: “Yeah, this is the perfect person to be leading our Mary Anning / Jurassic Coast experience.”
Thank you, and yes for sure those are great places to start. Oh and humor! I’ll bring humor to the trip like I do to the other projects. I love to make jokes and I just love to laugh. I love to find the humor in things. I love wordplay. I love banter.
I’m just really looking forward to having this unforgettable experience.
Well like I’ve said to you as we’ve been preparing for this trip, I’m painfully jealous that I can’t be participating in it because of limitations that I created myself, but I’m sure it’s gonna be an amazing time.
And I’m really excited for this for this all women’s trip to happen. I truly believe this is just the start of something for Dinosaur Trips that is going to lead to many all-women trips all over the world.
I’m really excited to see the success of this all women’s expedition for ‘In Mary Anning’s Footsteps’ and I’m beyond thrilled you’re leading it for us.
Me too! Thank you for thinking of me and I’m obviously just beyond, beyond excited. I think really creating safe places for women to experience a field that we’ve been historically excluded from is a great idea.
It’s also just great for our community and I’m very grateful for that. It’s inspiring me to think creatively about ways to create further safe places and paleo for all underrepresented groups. This is the start of some awesome things.