Sylvia Torti

Sylvia Torti ’92 is a biologist and creative writer, currently the dean of the Honors College at the University of Utah. At Earlham College she majored in biology and took part in a course to Costa Rica and semester abroad in Kenya, which strengthened her love of both biology and the tropics. Her graduate work in tropical biology at the University of Utah explored tropical tree diversity in Panama, Trinidad and Democratic Republic of Congo. Post-graduate school, she served as the first conservation biologist for Red Butte Botanical Garden and conducted research on Utah’s rare plants. In 2001 she became a member of Writers at Work, which hosted an annual national literary conference and from 2003-2005 served at its president. She has published two award-winning novels, The Scorpion’s Tail (2005) and Cages (2017) as well as numerous other essays and short stories. Her first novel won an award for “first novel by American of Latina descent.” Sylvia is the daughter of an Argentine father and American mother. She is the mother of a current Earlham student and her hobbies include running, birdwatching, gardening and traveling. A world traveler, she has lived in Denmark, Spain, Argentina, Brazil and speaks Danish and Spanish. Sylvia began her service to the Board in 2020.