Dr. Mary Higby Schweitzer is a pioneering paleontologist renowned for fundamentally reshaping our understanding of fossil preservation and molecular longevity. She currently holds the position of Professor Emeritus at North Carolina State University and serves as Research Curator of Paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. After earning her Bachelor's degree in Communicative Disorders from Utah State University in 1977, she initially taught deaf children before pivoting to paleontology in her late twenties. Under the mentorship of Jack Horner, she completed her Ph.D. in Biology at Montana State University in 1995, embarking on a research path that would eventually challenge centuries of scientific assumption about the fossilization process.
Dr. Schweitzer's landmark 2005 discovery of preserved soft tissues, including blood vessels and cellular structures, within a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex bone represented a paradigm shift in paleontology, fundamentally challenging long-held beliefs about molecular preservation limits. Previously, the scientific consensus maintained that organic materials could not survive beyond one million years, making her identification of collagen and other organic compounds in dinosaur fossils an extraordinary breakthrough. Her meticulous research demonstrated that these structures were not merely bacterial biofilms as some initially suggested but authentic remnants of the dinosaur's original vascular system. Through rigorous molecular analysis, she established protocols for detecting and verifying ancient biomolecules that have since become standard practice in the field of molecular paleontology.
Her research has been recognized three times among the top fifteen scientific stories across multiple years, reflecting the profound impact of her work on both scientific understanding and public imagination. Dr. Schweitzer has inspired a generation of female paleobiologists through her persistent dedication to following the evidence despite significant professional skepticism early in her career. Currently, her research continues to explore the frontiers of molecular paleontology, investigating molecular diagenesis and taphonomy to understand the biogeochemical conditions enabling exceptional preservation of organic materials over geological time. She is actively examining the evolution of physiological and reproductive strategies in dinosaurs and their avian descendants while pioneering applications of molecular paleontology techniques to astrobiological questions about potential biomarkers in extraterrestrial samples.
