Mary R. Dawson (February 27, 1931 – November 29, 2020) was a vertebrate paleontologist and curator emeritus at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

[1] She was Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh from 1972 until she retired in 2003, including serving as chair of the Earth Sciences Division from 1973 to 1997.

[3] Through this work, she and her collaborators discovered the first fossils of Tertiary land animals that documented a migration route between North America and Europe.

In 2006 she disputed the classification of the Laotian rock rat, arguing that it is a member of the family Diatomyidae, which had previously been believed to have gone extinct 11 million years ago.

[5] The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's Mary R. Dawson Predoctoral Fellowship Grant, which recognizes and supports graduate student research excellence, is named after her.