Thorsett and his twin brother, David Thorsett, were born in New Haven, Connecticut, to Grant Thorsett and his wife, Karen.[1] Stephen grew up in Salem, Oregon, where his father was a biology professor at Willamette University.[1] After attending elementary school and junior high in Salem, he graduated from South Salem High School in 1983.[2] During his youth, he earned money picking berries and with several jobs at Willamette.[1]
After graduation from Princeton, he was a Robert A. Millikan Research Fellow in physics at Caltech and an assistant professor of physics at Princeton.[3] He received the Ernest F. Fullam Award of the Dudley Observatory in 1994, and was named an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow in 1997. In 1999, he was hired at the University of California, Santa Cruz as a professor of astronomy and astrophysics. Thorsett was named dean of the school's Division of Physical and Biological Sciences on July 1, 2006.[6]
On May 14, 2011, he was named as the 25th president of Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.[3] He assumed the position on July 1, 2011, replacing M. Lee Pelton who had resigned to take the presidency at another college.[1][3]
^Nathan Newbury, John Ruhl, Suzanne Staggs, Stephen Thorsett, and Michael Newman. (1991). Princeton Problems in Physics with Solutions, Princeton University Press. ISBN0-691-02449-9