Donald E. Worster

Professor Donald Worster is the Joyce and Elizabeth Hall Professor of U.S. History at the University of Kansas and is considered a founder of American environmental history. He continues to be one of the leading voices within the study, with his work ranging from the history of ideas of nature and environment to the social history of the environment. Recently, he has turned to biography through the lives of explorer and environmentalist, John Wesley Powell, and of environmentalist, John Muir. Some other career appointments including teaching at the University of Hawaii, Brandeis University, and Yale University. He was also former President of the American Society for Environmental History, and is an active member in the Organization of American Historians, Western History Association, and American Historical Association. He is a recipient of the Bancroft Prize for "Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s", and a recipient of the National Outdoor Book Award, Spur Award, and Byron Caldwell Smith Award for "A River Running West".