Smithsonian Journeys Experts

Katryn Wiese is a professor of geology, paleontology, and oceanography with 30 years of experience, including research, teaching, field explorations, and community outreach. She studied at Caltech, Oregon State University, and Stanford University and focused her early research experiences on volcanic processes (modern and historic) in Iceland, Hawaii, the seafloor around the Azores and the Galapágos Islands, and the tablelands of Eastern Australia. Since then, she has journeyed around the world as a scientist and field guide, gaining field expertise across North and South America, Antarctica, the Arctic, Australia, New Zealand, and islands across every ocean, including Palau, Tahiti, Fiji, and Svalbard. 

Katryn’s primary focus today is her award-winning teaching: engaging students of all ages and backgrounds in exploring the natural phenomena at work in the landscape, reading the stories in the rocks and the landforms, evaluating the impact of the Earth and its oceans on our climate, culture, and society, and evaluating the impacts human civilizations throughout history have made and continue to make on our planet. She shares that work with local and global audiences through her Earth Rocks! YouTube video channel, her library of open source earth science lessons and lab manuals, and the Story of Time and Life, a 4-floor exhibit of dinosaurs, fossils, and meteorites that she installed and curates at City College of San Francisco in collaboration with the California Academy of Sciences. 

While she continues to collaborate with and support colleagues and exhibits at City College of San Francisco, she recently joined the faculty at the College of San Mateo, which is closer to her home on the edge of the San Francisco Bay. She is an avid hiker and kayaker and most at home outdoors exploring erupting volcanoes, glacially carved fjords, fossil-and-mineral-rich cliffs, and majestic mountains and coastlines that are off the beaten path.