Nick is a geology professor at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington, but he is better known internationally for his online videos covering the geology of the Pacific Northwest and his Nick on the Rocks series. Starting in the mid-2000s, he began giving public lectures about local geology topics, such as one on the Columbia River Basalt Group. These led to the production of a series of shorts he made called Two Minute Geology. He then produced the Nick on the Rocks series that aired on KCTS-TV in Seattle. During the COVID-19 pandemic Nick created live streaming lectures on various geology topics in a series called Nick From Home, focused on trying to provide an educational environment for children who might be out of school and viewers from around the world. For all of Nick’s outreach efforts, please visit his website: nickzentner.com.
Nick hails from Wisconsin, but during a 1983 trip to the Pacific Northwest on break from college he was inspired to study geology, earning his Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1986 and Master of Science from Idaho State University in 1989. From 1989 to 1992 Nick taught geology at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, then took on his current position teaching geology at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington. He teaches a popular “GEOL 101 – Geology of Washington” course every Fall and Winter Quarter – and his course is open and free to townspeople! In 2015, Nick received the prestigious James Shea Award, a national award recognizing exceptional delivery of Earth Science content to the general public. Past Shea Award recipients include John McPhee, Jack Horner, Robert Ballard, and Stephen Jay Gould.
Nick’s wife, Liz, teaches science at Ellensburg High School, and they have three boys – Max (29), Sam (27), and Jack (25).