Alexander Glass, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer in Earth and Climate Sciences
Division of Earth and Climate Sciences
Nicholas School of the Environment
Duke University
Office: LSRC 116A
E-mail: alex.glass@duke.edu
Phone (Work): 919-684-6167
Short Biography
I was born in and spent my childhood in Hildesheim, Germany before moving to the Chicago suburbs in 1989. After trying out pre-med, biology, anthropology, and chemistry as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign I took my first geology class. It was love at first sight. After a two year Masters at The Ohio State University, and another five years at U of I, I got my Ph.D. in geology with a focus in invertebrate paleontology. When I do get to do research I focus almost entirely on the fossil record of brittle stars. During my first job, a two year stint at Central Washington University, WA, I met my wife, and fellow geologist and naturalist-at-heart Jen. After moving to NC and Duke University in 2007, we got married on Precambrian gneisses along the NC Blue Ridge Parkway. Our sons are Adam (25) and Kyle (22).
I am unapologetically in love with rocks, the natural world, and living things. I love hiking, camping, gardening, wood-working, and playing board games. I am an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy, a genre I consider Literature with a capital “L”. I enjoy and collect German audio dramas (aka “Hörspiele”), and consider paper-modelling a form of meditation. I am also an avid player of retro-computer games, and can be found letting off steam on by XBox 360 (“Nothing is true, everything is permitted”). I am obsessed with all things geology, paleontology, evolution, biology, and zoology. I have been a lifelong “fringewatcher”, being deeply involved in the science and religion, and creation-evolution discussion. Lately, I have also been dragged into the climate change denier debate.
My family lives on 1.1 acres of deciduous, riparian woodlands in Efland, NC with, four cats (Vorian, Baley, Lucian, and Loki), two turtles (Logan, Olivia), a leopard gecko (Lily), four hermit crabs, and six chickens (flock led by Jadzia).
