Merry Wilson

I love science, and I am pretty much a huge nerd. I originally took a geology course as an undergraduate to satisfy my lab requirement in the easiest way possible (at least I thought it'd be easy), with no intention to retain any information beyond the final exam. Turns out, I loved it and never looked back. It was hard for me to specialize in a part of geology, and as such, I've worked on everything from dinosaurs to space, deep earth to natural disasters, geochemistry to mapping. In graduate school, I started teaching geology, and I have now taught every semester since 1997. I have been at SCC since 2002, and I love being an Artichoke. If it's true that your birthplace is not where you were born, but where you truly began to live, for me that would be Scottsdale Community College.  As a lifetime learner, I find it both challenging and immensely satisfying to be surrounded by an academic environment. I conduct research in the field of Geoscience education and specialize in getting students outside to understand geology in true, authentic field environments.  Rocks in the wild, baby.

In my spare time, I enjoy traveling, hiking, cycling, surfing, dog whispering, and kid-wrangling. I rarely, if ever, watch TV, and only remain culturally relevant through the monumental efforts of my teenage daughter.  In general, I am a shenanigans enthusiast, and I'm so much funnier than my kid thinks I am.