After completing his undergraduate degree at Clark University, he worked for two years as a speechwriter and deputy communications director for the Democratic Party in Massachusetts - while going to law school at night (fun stuff!). In 1998, Thor moved to Washington, DC to start graduate work at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at The George Washington University. At the same time, he began an eight-year career as a policy researcher at a series of think tanks - this included half a decade as a project director within the RAND Corporation's Science and Technology Policy Institute. In this capacity, he was the principal investigator on numerous studies conducted for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).