Irene Allen

E. Kirsten Peters grew up in a small, university town in the Pacific Northwest. As she backpacked with her family in the mountains in the summers she marveled at the beauty of the great outdoors and then got deeply interested in the geological sciences when she took a freshman-level course at Princeton, a class that covered the physical history of our planet and the evolution of life on Earth. Majoring in geology, she studied her way to graduation with highest honors, eventually earning a doctorate in geology at Harvard. When Kirsten returned to the inland Northwest, she taught geology and interdisciplinary science classes at Washington State University.

In other byways of life, Kirsten adopted the persona of “Rock Doc,” publishing syndicated essays on science for newspapers across the nation, even reading some of her pieces on Northwest Public Radio. On another path, Kirsten adopted the pen name Irene Allen to blend her Quaker worship with writing four mysteries featuring Elizabeth Elliott – imagine a Quaker Miss Marple.

Kirsten has sustained a long engagement with the history of climate on Earth, both regional and worldwide. Naturalists began studying this subject in the 1830s and by the late nineteenth century geologists and other scientists had discovered a wealth of information related to climate’s variability. Even now, retired from teaching, Kirsten follows the current debate about man-made greenhouse gases with great interest and wrote her book about climate to reach a general audience with a factual context for a subject of increasing importance to us now in political and practical terms.

Kirsten divides her retirement between volunteer work – much of it organized through her church – and walking four to six miles a day with her faithful dog. For a time, she combined her volunteer activities with her love of canines by walking large dogs housed at the local humane society, a total of two hours each weekday. An advocate of adopting from shelters, Kirsten has many tales to tell of pups she has owned over the decades, all different --- but each a good dog.

In other byways of life, Kirsten adopted the persona of “Rock Doc,” publishing syndicated essays on science for newspapers across the nation, even reading some of her pieces on Northwest Public Radio. On another path, Kirsten adopted the pen name Irene Allen to blend her Quaker worship with writing four mysteries featuring Elizabeth Elliott – imagine a Quaker Miss Marple.