Robert Thorson is a Midwestern native turned Northwestern geologist turned Northeastern academic who has walked to work for four decades. He's a Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Connecticut where he teaches Honors Core, advanced geoscience, and science communication courses. His scholarship bridges the intellectual apartheid between STEM science and the humanities. As a journalist, he has written for The Atlantic, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian, Orion, and The Conversation. As an author, he's published nine books, most recently The Walden Experiments by Princeton University Press. To engage the community, he coordinates the Stone Wall Initiative, the Stone Pavilion Project, the Ask an Earth Scientist page, and exhibits at the William Benton Museum of Art. For the 2026 sabbatical academic year, will be an affiliate of the Transcendentalism Initiative at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School.
Images: Mugshot by Kristine Thorson. Slides by NASA (sky), ALAMY (stream), Stephan Huwiler (fox), Emilio Morenatti (pack ice).