University of Minnesota professor charged with domestic assault

A promi­nent University of Min­ne­so­ta pro­fes­sor and arc­tic ex­plor­er vi­o­lent­ly at­tacked his fiancé dur­ing a late-night ar­gu­ment, leaving her fear­ing for her life, ac­cord­ing to crim­i­nal charges filed Thurs­day.

Aaron H. Doer­ing, 47, a ten­ured pro­fes­sor, was charged in Hennepin County District Court with two fel­o­ny counts of do­mes­tic as­sault by stran­gu­la­tion. He re­mains jailed in lieu of $40,000 bail.

Ac­cord­ing to the crim­i­nal com­plaint, of­fic­ers re­spond­ed to a re­port­ed do­mes­tic as­sault in prog­ress on Wednes­day night at an a­part­ment the cou­ple shares in the 1700 block of Mad­i­son Street NE. in Minneapolis.

When po­lice ap­proach­ed the door, they heard a man and woman ar­gu­ing in­side. Upon en­ter­ing, of­fic­ers sepa­rat­ed Doer­ing and his fiancé, who had red marks on her fore­head and bruis­ing in the shape of fin­gers on one side of her neck.

The woman told auth­ori­ties that dur­ing the course of an ar­gu­ment, Doer­ing had grabbed her by the hair and dragged her through­ the a­part­ment. He later beat and choked her un­til she was un­a­ble to breathe and felt as if she'd lose con­scious­ness, court re­cords show.

She alleged it was not the first time Doer­ing had phys­i­cal­ly as­sault­ed her and pro­vid­ed pic­tures docu­ment­ing pri­or in­ju­ries. "Vic­tim be­lieves [Doer­ing] will kill her if he re­turns to the a­part­ment," ac­cord­ing to the crim­i­nal com­plaint.

A u­ni­ver­si­ty spokes­wom­an said Thurs­day eve­ning that Doer­ing's em­ploy­ment sta­tus with the school has not changed. "We're a­ware of the sit­u­a­tion, and will be re­view­ing the mat­ter," said Lacey Nygard, as­sist­ant di­rec­tor of pub­lic re­la­tions.

Doer­ing, of Min­ne­ap­olis, is a na­tion­al speak­er on cli­mate change and a Ca­na­di­an arc­tic ex­plor­er whose pro­jects have led him from Si­ber­i­a, Ne­pal and Bur­kina Faso to the north­ern reach­es of Nor­way.

His ex­pe­di­tions land­ed him at the fore­front of ad­ven­ture learn­ing, through which he works to con­nect K-12 and a­dult learn­ers to far-flung lo­cales. As di­rec­tor of the Learning Technologies Me­di­a Lab at the U, Doer­ing uses tech­nol­o­gy like drones to give stu­dents a glimpse into is­sues of sus­tain­a­bil­i­ty, cul­ture and the en­vi­ron­ment.

He is also a Royal Ca­na­di­an Ge­o­graph­i­cal So­ci­e­ty fel­low who is reg­u­lar­ly inter­viewed by CNN, the Weath­er Channel and oth­er me­di­a out­lets.

Doer­ing will make a first court ap­pear­ance re­lated to the case Fri­day.

Liz Sawyer • 612-673-4648