Illustration by Hännah Foote. From left to right: Caitlin D. Wylie and Lisa Margonelli.
Pretty much every dinosaur skeleton you see has been painstakingly excavated from rock by people with precision, skill, and creativity. What they don’t have are paleontology degrees, and what they don’t get is money or credit. In fact, fossil preparators are mostly enthusiastic volunteers who come from all different backgrounds and receive their training on the job. Their unsung work creates the foundation of scientific knowledge about life, environment, and evolution. This veritable army of citizen scientists has a great deal to teach professional researchers, who are struggling to connect with the public. Could studying and emulating the paths these technicians take to the lab help make scientific disciplines more inclusive? Why are fossil preparators outliers in serious scientific research? And might adopting outreach efforts akin to the glass-walled natural history museum labs where preparators work help build public trust in science?
University of Virginia social scientist Caitlin Donahue Wylie, author of Preparing Dinosaurs: The Work Behind the Scenes and a new essay on the topic, and Issues in Science and Technology editor-in-chief Lisa Margonelli visit Zócalo to talk about the power of looking beyond Ph.D.s and publications to recognize and connect to all who contribute to scientific knowledge.
Zócalo is proud to partner with Issues in Science and Technology, a quarterly journal published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and Arizona State University, to present discussions focused on the intersection of science, technology and public policy.
Featured Speakers:
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Caitlin Donahue Wylie
Author, Preparing Dinosaurs
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Lisa Margonelli
Editor-in-Chief, Issues in Science and Technology
The Takeaway
Meet the ‘Mediators’ Who Connect Scientists and the Public
Fossil Preparators Are a Panacea to a Closed-Off Field—And Their Work Offers a New Model for Research
How do colossal Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops fossils get from the ground to the natural history museum? And could that process—which involves not just paleontologists but a largely uncredited group …
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Since World War II, the United States has famously funded research to advance all fields of science and innovation, fueling new disease-fighting drugs, increasing economic productivity, and sparking an information …