Rate My Professor Thom van Dooren

Van Dooren's research lies at the intersection of environmental humanities, philosophy of science and the environment, science and technology studies, anthropology, cultural studies, and human geography, in conversation with the natural sciences and ethnographic work with local communities. His core focus is on philosophical, ethical, cultural, and political dimensions of species extinctions and multispecies entanglements in threatened worlds; he co-founded the multidisciplinary field of extinction studies with Deborah Bird Rose, Matthew Chrulew, and others. Notable publications include the books Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction (Columbia University Press, 2014), The Wake of Crows: Living and Dying in Shared Worlds (Columbia University Press, 2019), and A World in a Shell: Snail Stories for a Time of Extinctions (MIT Press, 2022). He co-founded the international open-access journal Environmental Humanities (Duke University Press) in 2012, co-editing it until 2020. Among his honors are the Biophilia Award in Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences from the BBVA Foundation (2025), Humboldt Research Award funded fellowship at the University of Cologne (2024), election as Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (2022), Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (2017-2021), Humboldt Research Fellowship at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich (2014-2016), and SOAR Prize Fellowship at the University of Sydney (2022-2023). He has served on the Australian Research Council College of Experts (2021-2023), as Co-Director of the Oceania Observatory of the Humanities for the Environment, and Co-Convenor of the Australian Environmental Humanities Hub. Additional appointments include Professor II in the Oslo School of Environmental Humanities at the University of Oslo (2020-2022).