Geography, Geology and the Environment

I was interested in dinosaurs from a very early age despite a paucity of fossils in the Wicklow Mountains where I grew up. 

I went to Imperial College, London and obtained a B.Sc. in Geology at the Royal School of Mines, then went on to Bristol University for my Ph.D., which was entitled  Fossil Terrestrial Trackways: Function, Taphonomy and Palaeoecological Significance.

I then worked as a freelance scientific writer on a children’s dinosaur encyclopaedia, and as a National Trust palaeontologist on a then (1997) recently discovered dinosaur tracksite in Dorset, before working for BBC Science as a specialist palaeontological researcher on the award-winning and groundbreaking series Walking with Dinosaurs.

I moved to the USA at the end of 1998 to take up a post as Senior Instructor in Geology and Assistant Curator of the Dinosaur Tracks Museum at the University of Colorado – Denver. I stayed there, teaching on geology and physical geography courses, and continuing with my research on terrestrial vertebrate and arthropod trace fossils. I progressed to Assistant Professor and Associate Professor, gradually becoming more and more interested in environmental issues, starting a module in Environmental Geology and becoming leader of the Earth Sciences degree track until, in 2007, I decided I wanted to work more directly in the environmental sector so I returned to the UK to do an M.Sc. in Hydrogeology at the University of Birmingham.

Following that I worked as a consultant hydrogeologist at ESI, Shrewsbury until I came to Keele University in April 2011 to help set up and run the Sustainability Hub and to teach on the M.Sc. in Environmental Sustainability and Green Technology.

In the last few years I have become more interested in environmental issues and this is where I am concentrating my current research.  My M.Sc. research was in measuring and modelling water levels in wetlands with a view to investigating how predicted alterations in weather patterns due to climate change might affect wetland management.  I am also investigating the performance of the various energy technologies installed in the Sustainability Hub Building, and I am involved in waste minimisation projects .

I have also worked for several years in the field of science education – investigating how to engage students (both adults and children) in science and striving to improve teacher education and continuing professional development by involving practising teachers in “real” science so they feel a connection with the subject and can pass this enthusiasm on to their pupils.  The outreach activities we lead at the Hub fulfil a similar function and allow me to continue this avenue of research.

Until recently my main area of research was in terrestrial palaeoenvironments, those which preserved the trace fossils of vertebrate or arthropods.  I have worked on rocks ranging in age from Ordovician to Holocene, including water lain and air fall volcaniclastics, sandstones, siltstones, intraclastic conglomeratic mudstones and bioclastic limestones, in environments from marginal marine to continental deserts, and on tracks made by myriapods, insects, spiders, scorpions, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, mammals and humans.  I am interested in how the tracks are not only made but preserved and the distortions which can occur during diagenesis, or through transmission to different sedimentary layers, and I have carried out sediment experiments and computer modelling to investigate this.  I am also very interested in more objective and numerical methods to document and compare tracks so that their classification and interpretation is more transparent

Download : Joanna Wright publication list

Selected Publications

• J.L. Wright, 2005, Sauropod tracks and their importance in the study of the functional morphology and paleoecology of sauropods.  Sauropod Biology Symposium Volume. InThe Sauropods  K A Curry Rogers, J A Wilson (eds)  University of California Press. pp.252-284
• J.L. Wright, 2004, Bird-like aspects of dinosaur footprints. Feathered Dragons: Studies on the Transition from Dinosaurs to Birds, P.J. Currie, E. Koppelhaus, M. Shugar & J.L. Wright (eds) Indiana University Press. pp 167-181.
• J.L. Wright, 2004, Walking with Dinosaurs (and other extinct animals) along Colorado’s Front Range: a field trip to Paleozoic and Mesozoic terrestrial localities.  Geological Society of America Field Guide 5: Field Trips in the Southern Rocky Mountains, USA. p.219-234
• J.L. Wright & B.H. Breithaupt, 2003, Dinosaur tracks and traces: Walking in their footsteps and what they left us.  In Scotchmoor, J.G., Springer, D.A., Breithaupt, B.H. and Fiorillo, A.R., (eds) Dinosaurs: The Science behind the Stories American Geological Institute, pp. 117-126
• M.G. Lockley & J.L. Wright, 2003, Pterosaur swim tracks and other ichnological evidence of behaviour and ecology.  In E. Buffetaut and J. Mazin, (eds) Evolution and Palaeobiology of the Pterosaurs Geological Society of London Special Publication 217, 297-313.
• Marlow, M. and J.L. Wright, 2003, A Paleontology Science Network Inquiry Consortium: Impact on Teacher Practice. Journal of Geoscience Education 51:317-321
• D. Thomas, J. Wright & J. Hand, 2003.  Using GIS in paleontology field studies. NOVAtion.  Available from http://novationsjournal.org/
• Martin Lockley, Joanna Wright, Diane White, Li Jianjun, Feng Lu, Li Hong & Masaki Matsukawa, 2002, The first sauropod trackways from China.  Cretaceous Research 23:363-381

M.Sc.

• ESC - 40032 : Clean and Green Technologies II - Power from Beneath the Earth (Module Leader)
• ESC - 40030 : Case Studies in Sustainability
• ESC - 40029 : Thesis Module
• ESC- 40031 : Clean and Green Technologies I - Power from Above the Earth
• ESC- 40028 : Geohazards
• LSC- 40023 : Research & Business Skills, Project & Portfolio Management

Third Year

• CHE-30024 : Clean Technology (Module Leader)
• ESC-30019/ESC-30035/ESC-30031  : Dissertations for Applied Environmental Science and Environment and Sustainability

Second Year

• ESC-20051 : Work Placement Module (Joint Module Developer)

First Year

• ESC-10053 : Dinosaur Planet (Module Leader)

Foundation Year

• ESC-00006 : Dinosaur Lives (Module Leader)

I am also an instructor on the following field trips: North Wales (M.Sc.), Utah (M Geoscience), Snowdonia (Geology), Wenlock Edge (Geology), the Natural History Museum, London (Geology)