Welcome Message
Robert Thorson is a Midwestern native, turned Northwestern geologist, turned Northeastern academic. At UConn, he's a Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Connecticut, where he juggles teaching, writing, mentoring, committee work, and community engagement. He teaches core courses and seminars within the Honors Program and the Department of Earth Sciences. His scholarly focus is the interweave where the threads of landscape geology, historical archaeology, woodland ecology, environmental history, and American literature come together. Specifically, he's working to create a science for New England's signature landform --the fieldstone wall-- and to reveal the physical scientist doppelganger beneath the literary Henry David Thoreau. His scholarly engagement involves coordinating the long-term Stone Pavilion Project and the Stone Wall Initiative, and short term requests.
Photo: From the Whetten Woods land trust in Mansfield, CT, through which I commute to work on a private trail. What is now my front yard was once the back yard of one of my professors from Seattle.