University of Minnesota professor charged with domestic assault

Aaron Doering allegedly choked his fiancé.

December 29, 2018 at 4:32PM
Aaron H. Doer­ing
Aaron H. Doer­ing (Terry Sauer/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

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

(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
about the writer

about the writer

Liz Sawyer

Reporter

Liz Sawyer  covers Minneapolis crime and policing at the Star Tribune. Since joining the newspaper in 2014, she has reported extensively on Minnesota law enforcement, state prisons and the youth justice system. 

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