Robert F. Doren is a wetland ecologist whose forty-year career focused on the ecology and restoration of the Florida Everglades and its coastal ecosystems. He served as Director of the South Florida Research Center at Everglades National Park, then as lead scientist for the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, the largest ecosystem restoration on earth, and was faculty at Florida International University, Southeast Environmental Research Center. His research spanned hydrology, ecological disturbance and recovery, invasive species management, and long-term ecological monitoring.
A meditator for more than fifty years, he practiced Transcendental Meditation for much of his life before studying Thai meditative practices with a Buddhist Dharma Master, and most recently Zen practice with a teacher in the American Southwest, where he now lives. He writes at the intersection of ecology and contemplative life—the two landscapes he has spent his years learning to read.
Alongside the science, he has kept a contemplative practice for more than fifty years, moving through Transcendental Meditation and Zen and study with a Thai Buddhist dharma master.
His books grow from the meeting of those two disciplines — the patient observation of the field and the patient attention of the cushion. He founded Quiet Fire Press to publish that work. And hopes to publish other authors who work within this mode of expression.