Robert Thorson's Homepage

Author - Professor - Journalist - Speaker - Geologist

Welcome

• Author - Books on the signature landforms relating to environmental history and literature.
• Professor - University of Connecticut: Geology, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Anthropology, Honors.
• Journalist - Eight years of regular essays and opinions for the Hartford Courant.
• Speaker - Stump evangelist for conservation and interpretation of historic landscapes.
• Geologist - Archaeological geology, sediment transport, and wetland processes.

Photo by Peter Morenus, University of Connecticut.

By day from September through May, I'm a Professor of Geology at the rural Storrs campus of the University of Connecticut. There, I juggle teaching, research, advising, and committee work in the Honors Program, the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, the Department of Anthropology, and the Center for Integrated Geosciences. On weekends, I usually migrate toward the sea where I spend my time writing as an op-ed columnist for the Hartford Courant and as a book author. My columns and essays follow the mantra "No rock. No ecosystem. No culture." My books involve the link between geoscience and American Studies, the latest being a book on Thoreau's Walden for Harvard University Press in 2013. With no academic obligations during the summer, I tend to go with the flow.