Mary Higby Schweitzer
Department of Microbiology and Earth Sciences
Montana State University
Bozeman, MT 59717
USA

Mary Schweitzer is what you could call an "eclectic" scientist. She came to science rather late in life, after a varied career as a snow cone salesman, telemarketer, barmaid, waitress, insurance secretary, bank teller, speech and hearing trainer in the schools, and audiologist for an ear-nose and throat clinic. She also worked with retarded adults and sold fireworks with her kids for four summers in a row. Paleontology was an accident, as when she started out as an "old" student with three small children, she planned to try for medical school. Two very part-time years later, she realized that medical school was prohibitive from both a time and money standpoint, so she got certified to teach high school science. However, her timing was off, and she finished requirements in mid-year, leaving her free to audit a course on dinosaurs from the great Jack Horner, dinosaur expert. From that point on, she found herself returning whole-heartedly to her first love, paleontology, which she discovered through her brother at age four. She received her PhD in biology from Montana State University two weeks before turning 40, and has worked in the field since that time.