Gillen D'Arcy Wood

Gillen D'Arcy Wood is Robert W. Schaefer Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, with appointments in English and the Department of Earth Science and Environmental Change. A past Associate Director at the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE), he directs the iSEE Certificate in Environmental Writing (co-sponsored by the English Department), and serves as editor of Q Magazine, dedicated to undergraduate environmental writing. He is the author of six books on wide-ranging subjects in nineteenth-century literature, culture, and environmental history: these include two books on British Romanticism, an historical novel about yellow fever, the award-winning Tambora: The Eruption that Changed the World (2014), and a history of early Victorian polar exploration and science, Land of Wondrous Cold: The Race to Discover Antarctica and the Secrets of its Ice (2020). Essays have appeared in leading scholarly journals and in popular forums including Nautilus, Smithsonian Magazine, Lapham's Quarterly, Public Domain Review, Grist and Slate. His work has been translated into eight languages. His new book, The Wake of HMS Challenger: How a Legendary Victorian Voyage Tells the Story of our Oceans' Decline (2025), revisits the pioneering Challenger oceanographic expedition (1872-76), and marks the culminating installment in his eco-trilogy with Princeton University Press. The Challenger project was awarded a Carnegie Foundation Fellowship for 2021-22.