Passion on display: Myria Perez explains why paleontology is a great introduction to science

Myria Perez has been passionate about paleontology since she was a teenager. Today she is just as passionate about introducing other young girls to science.

Myria Perez holds the distinction of being one of only a handful of scientists at the Smithsonian who is also a museum exhibit herself. Unlike most scholars at the National Museum of Natural History, Myria doesn’t perform her work in some hidden-away laboratory or office or some remote field site. Rather, she works in the Deep Time exhibit in the museum’s Fossil Hall, behind a glass wall, on full display to visitors.

The museum’s FossiLab is a fully functional laboratory designed for Myria and her colleagues to excavate, repair, and conserve fossil specimens under the watchful eye of curious museum visitors. “We try to make sure we’re there and doing work when the museum is open. We want to make sure the visitors can witness science in real time,” she told Eye on Science. The three lab members and their volunteers use a whiteboard to keep visitors apprised of what they’re working on. “We try to keep it simple but exciting,” Myria continued.

What’s it like to go about your job with strangers looking over her shoulder all the time? “Honestly, you get used to it. Especially if you have headphones on, and you’re really focused, you kind of forget,” she assured Eye on Science. Besides, she has fun with it. “It’s pretty funny going out and listening to what people say about it. Some people think we’re actors, or that we’re fake.” That’s because much of Myria’s work takes place under a microscope. “Sometimes, under the microscope, you’re making huge changes to the rock, removing it to uncover a fossil. But from an outside perspective, your hand is barely moving, and you look frozen. When I look away from the microscope, some people step back, shocked to realize I’m real.”

Myria is getting a Gorgosaurus ready for jacketing by welding a fitted foam layer over the specimen. This foam will be a cushiony layer between the fossil and the fiberglass and plaster exterior.

Myria relishes the opportunity to perform her work in public view. Besides serving as a fossil preparator, she is also a dedicated educator, seeking to break down the barriers to science, especially for young girls. In 2019, she participated in the IF/THEN project, where she became one of 150 women in STEM to serve as ambassadors, or role models for the next generation of women scientists. “I grew up wanting to be a paleontologist. I was really young when I started prepping fossils at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. I had wonderful mentors to guide me and I had really cool people in the field help me out. I saw IF/THEN as a way to give back: I was finally in a preparator role; I made it, and it was time for me to give back to others, especially middle school kids, because I was 12 years old when I started my STEM journey.”

Myria is opening a completed clamshell jacket housing a tyrannosaurus rex pelvis

With funding from IF/THEN, Myria started a YouTube channel, answering questions such as, “so you want to be a paleontologist?”  Myria’s videos have received remarkably positive responses from women and girls who express how much they appreciated her guidance and support. On another occasion, through an episode of a science podcast for kids, Myria explained how to be a “fossil fixer,” and during the pandemic, she demonstrated how to excavate a bone using a chocolate chip cookie. Myria designed the demo herself. “I needed something accessible,” she said, so kids could do it at home.

IF/THEN also honored Myria and the other ambassadors by creating a life-size, orange models of each scientist and exhibiting them outside a shopping mall in Dallas, Texas. “Wow, I got a tan, an orange tan,” Myria reported saying when she first saw herself in plastic. But seriously, she told Eye on Science, “It was one thing seeing people go to the exhibit. It was another to see mothers with their daughters exploring the exhibit saying, ‘Ooh, she’s an astrophysicist, ooh she’s a paleontologist.’ It was amazing to see how shocked they were about the different kinds of jobs girls can get. That was really…” And she stopped there, unable to finish her sentence. Her emotions naturally bubbled up as she recollected the impact the exhibition had on the community.

The Smithsonian placed the models on the Mall in honor of Women’s History Month in 2022. “When I found out it was going to come to the National Mall for a little bit, I was so excited,” Myria said. “You have people from all over the world coming to visit.”

Myria Perez poses with her doppleganger statue.

Part of Myria’s drive to give back derives from her formative experiences in Texas, where she grew up. “I’ve always been the fossil-and-dinosaur kid. When I was in middle school, which happens to be one of the biggest points in the leaky pipeline when girls decide if they want to be scientists, I went to ‘Dino Days’ and they had a Meet-a-Paleontologist activity.” It was there that Myria found her passion. Although the Houston Museum of Natural Science didn’t accept volunteers under the age of 14, the precocious little Myria convinced them to give her a slot anyway. The catch: a parent needed to accompany her. “Thankfully, my mom was willing and able to drive me there.” She said she would work for three to four hours at time, such long stretches that her mother would come in and ask her if she needed a break.

“It was really cool and I feel very lucky to have that experience there. The curator, David Temple, taught me prep, how to excavate fossils, and how to share info with the public,” Myria said. She continued volunteering through high school, and when it came time to choose a college, she selected a university where she could find a mentor that would continue teaching her fossil prep from day one. Today, some of the fossils Myria prepped in college at Southern Methodist University are on exhibit in the National Museum of Natural History.

Myria donated her orange effigy to the tiny and quaint Whiteside Museum of Natural History in Seymour, Texas, the town where Myria performed her first fieldwork with the museum in Houston. She hopes her statue inspires the girls who visit the museum in Seymour, showing them that they can be scientists, too.

“I always tell kids they need to be brave and ask questions and stay curious. They shouldn’t be afraid to be wrong or feel like they’re going to ask the wrong question. I tell them to keep exploring,” Myria told Eye on Science. She also expressed how paleontology is a wonderful introduction to science because it combines biology, geology, history, and art. (Myria’s left forearm features a tattoo representation of pioneering paleontologist/artist Mary Anning’s drawing of a plesiosaur.)

Finally, Myria expressed the importance of getting people excited about science. “That’s what’s great about FossiLab. We get people who don’t really have an interest in science, but we connect with visitors to make science less scary.”

Eye on Science, our new biweekly series, will shine a light on our vast and varied body of work by bringing Smithsonian science into sharper focus. Eye on Science will tell the stories of the people behind the research, the discoveries they make and their inspiration. We will explore their passions, celebrate their contributions, and look more closely at how questions become solutions that can inform environmental policy, spur technological innovation, and promote community and collaboration across the globe.

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