Freshman Abroad in Limerick

Dr. Larry Spencer

Larry Spencer received his Ph.D. from Colorado State in 1968 in Zoology with a specialty in limnology and a minor in geology. He has been on the faculty at Plymouth since September 1967. He had taught a wide variety of courses in the biological sciences, including general biology, invertebrate zoology, vertebrate zoology animal physiology, ecology, evolution and most recently genetics. In addition he has taught interdisciplinary courses in the history of science and perspectives on wilderness. He has also taught physical and historical geology, oceanography and remote sensing/GIS. This wide experience comes from having been at Plymouth for such a long period of time and the fact that small schools allow faculty to not to have to become overly specialized. His research interests presently are on the applications of remote sensing and GIS in forest ecology, particularly as related to the northeastern US.

He has traveled widely. In 1989 he was an independent scholar in Suzhou, People’s Republic of China, where he examined the teaching and status of environmental affairs in China. In 2003 he was a visiting researcher at Lincoln University where he studied the ecology of New Zealand forests. His children have followed in his footsteps travel wise. He son spent his senior year of high school in Gavle, Sweden, while his middle daughter spent her senior year in Purrs, Belgium. His youngest daughter has even traveled more than her siblings, having spent two summers in Antarctica, two safaris in Africa, has ridden the Trans-Siberian railroad once, visited the Galapagos twice, visited the Spice Isles and Bali, and circumnavigated both New Zealand and Australia by bus and train. With children like these, he is anxious to meet and greet the incoming first year students in Limerick who must have the same “travel’ gene.