Professor Dawn Wright

Dawn Wright has been named the 2011 recipient of the Higher Education Distinguished Teacher Award from the National Council for Geographic Education. The award honors those who have made extraordinary contributions to the teaching and learning of geography at a post-secondary level.

Wright is an Oregon State University professor of geosciences and director of the geography program, as well as the GIScience Certificate program.  Known to her students as “Deepsea Dawn,” Wright does research on marine and coastal geography.

Wright will receive the award Aug. 6 at the organization’s national conference in Portland.

Wright was also named a Leopold Leadership Fellow with the Woods Institute of the Environment at Stanford University this year.