Jennifer Thomsen

Assistant Professor and Program Director, Parks, Tourism, and Recreation Management

Jenn is an Assistant Professor and Program Director in the Parks, Tourism, and Recreation Management Department at the University of Montana. She was formerly a postdoctoral scholar on the Environmental Learning in the San Francisco Bay Area project. She earned her PhD from Clemson University in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management, where her research focused on landscape-scale conservation addressing transboundary social and ecological issues. Jenn’s dissertation explored the opportunities and challenges throughout the lifecycle of landscape-scale collaborative conservation organizations with case studies on the Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere Cooperative (SAMAB) located in the southeastern region of the U.S. and the Crown Managers Partnership (CMP) located in the northwestern region that crosses the Canadian-U.S. border.

Jenn has also participated in numerous projects with the National Park Service including co-authoring the Healthy Parks, Healthy People Science Plan and projects on education and interpretation in protected areas. In addition, she has conducted research and implemented projects pertaining to tourism and conservation in Namibia, the Dominican Republic, and Peru. Jenn’s B.S. and M.S. degrees were in Wildlife and Fisheries Biology from Clemson University.