Mineralogy

Dexter Perkins received his B.S. from the University of Rochester in 1973, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1979. After graduate school, his first faculty position was at the University of Chicago. He came to the University of North Dakota in 1981 where he is currently a Professor of Geology. During the past 25 years Perkins has had several 1-year appointments at European universities. Perkins is a past editor of American Mineralogist and the Journal of Geoscience Education (since 2000).


Perkins's regular teaching duties include undergraduate and graduate mineralogy and petrology. He is also an active geology researcher. He has published almost 100 articles in professional journals and has written three books. Past research focused on high-temperature minerals and rocks; his current research concerns xenoliths from the Southwestern United States, and science education reform. So, he is both doing basic scientific research and contributing to educational research.