The face of paleontology is changing, and so are the jobs
The field is becoming more diverse as a younger generation takes the baton. Colorado, with its fossils and tracks, is part of that. State museums have experts on staff, but so does CDOT.
Nicole Peavey was 5 years old when she decided she wanted to be a paleontologist. At the time, it would be another decade before “Jurassic Park” hit theaters and made dinosaurs — and the study of them — cool again. But something piqued her interest while growing up in Montana, around the time fossilized eggs and an unhatched dinosaur embryo were discovered on what’s now known as Egg Mountain.
Now 41, Peavey has worked as the staff paleontologist for the Colorado Department of Transportation ( CDOT) for 10 years. She considers herself the “old guard” these days, but she has helped usher in a new generation of paleontologists across the state.
Paleontology, the study of ancient life based on fossils, has — like many of the sciences — long been dominated by white men. “There have always been women in paleontology, but you didn’t see them nearly as much,” Peavey says. That’s been changing in recent years, as younger and more diverse scientists graduate and enter the field, older professionals retire, and recognition grows that fieldwork ( which can be inaccessible to individuals with physical disabilities) is not a requirement to be a paleontologist.
A March 2020 report by the Paleontological Association found that about 35 percent of paleontologists working in the field were women, with the vast majority younger than 45 years old. The report also noted that “other components of diversity also remain underrepresented in paleontology.” That’s a reality that hasn’t changed in more than four decades, according to research published in Nature in 2018.
In October, 32- year- old Amy Atwater joined Dinosaur Ridge in Morrison as the director of development and membership. A former paleontology collections manager at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Mont., and curator for the U. S. Geological Survey, Atwater shifted away from more traditional paleontology jobs because, she says, “It hasn’t always been a friendly environment in some of those more traditional roles.”
At conferences and other events, Atwater has found that the vast majority of speakers are white, cisgender men, which she says has been “really discouraging.”
Colorado has made some encouraging progress, though: More than half of the earth sciences department at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science is made up of women. In addition, the Bureau of Land Management’s regional paleontologist for
five Western states, the curator of paleontology for the Museums of Western Colorado, and the monument paleontologist and museum curator at Dinosaur National Monument are all female.
The Centennial State is a hotbed for dinosaur remnants. Picket Wire Canyonlands near La Junta is home to the largest dinosaur tracksite in North America, and stegosaurus, apatosaurus, and allosaurus have all been found at Dinosaur Ridge, which a panel of paleontologists ranked as the continent’s top dinosaur tracksite. “A lot of the ones people can rattle off — your classic dinosaurs — come from the Morrison formation,” Peavey explains. In fact, the first stegosaurus ever found was discovered near the town in 1877. ( The state is so proud of these finds that a new stegosaurus-themed license plate was released on Jan. 1.)
Atwater runs a popular Instagram account, @ mary_ annings_ revenge, named after a pioneering 19th- century English paleontologist whose finds were often uncredited or attributed to others because she was a woman. The goal, Atwater says, is to “bring visibility to my life as a paleontologist who also happens to be a woman and challenge that stereotypical face of paleontology. I’m trying to share my story and stories of other underrepresented folks in the field as well.” She also launched a podcast about evolution, “Weird & Dead,” late last month.
In April, Colton Snyder became the first paleontologist on staff at History Colorado, which is a steward for state resources, including prehistoric ones. Snyder, who’s from Nebraska, used to stuff rocks in his pockets, but it was a meeting with the state paleontologist after summer science camp in junior high that cemented his future occupation. “It’s a newer, younger generation,” the 28- year- old says of his colleagues. “I’m very excited about it. I think that science does not benefit from the same ideologies repeated over and over by the same people. Getting newer ideas in from younger people, more diverse people has been hugely beneficial to paleontology …. We have a long way to go, but we’re making progress.”
CDOT’S Peavey said not seeing many women in the field didn’t discourage her ambitions, but, she notes, “It did mean that I tended to alter how I presented myself to try to fit what I perceived as that paleontologist mold. There’s a certain internalized misogyny that I’ve had to unlearn over the years and still kind of impacts the way I present myself.” One example: She never wore pink on the job until she started working at CDOT because she thought it was too feminine. “It’s something I’m still unpacking after all these years,” she says.
She adds: “There’s a perception of what makes a paleontologist and making sure people know this is what a paleontologist looks like — it’s not always trying to look like Indiana Jones. I feel like that’s important.”