Frances Wagner

Frances Joan Estelle Wagner (28 May 1927 – 8 November 2016) was a Canadian paleontologist and public servant. Specializing in the use of micropaleontology to study marine geology, she was one of the first female scientists to be permitted to conduct fieldwork by the Geological Survey of Canada, and in 1973 was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in recognition of her achievements and scientific research.

Early life and education Born on 28 May 1927 in Hamilton, Ontario, Wagner was the daughter of Muriel (née Konkle) and Harold Wagner. She had one younger brother, David, with whom she spent many hours of her youth exploring the flora, fauna and geology of the Canadian Shield around her family's Muskoka vacation cottage on Mary Lake. During the middle summer of her MA studies, in 1949, Wagner was employed by the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) to catalogue samples at the Victoria Museum in Ottawa, and she began work full-time with the GSC on her 23rd birthday in May 1950.