Author Bio
For much of the past 20 years, Dr. Mark J. Plotkin has worked with and learned from the ancient shamans of Central and South America. These years in the rainforests have provided Dr. Plotkin with incomparable knowledge of healing plants and traditions of the shamans.
Recently hailed by Time magazine as an environmental “Hero for the Planet,” Dr. Plotkin is an ethnobotanist who was educated at Harvard, Yale and Tufts. Mark Plotkin formerly served as Research Associate in Ethnobotanical Conservation at the Botanical Museum of Harvard University, Director of Plant Conservation at the World Wildlife Fund and Vice President of Conservation International in Washington, D.C. He currently serves as Research Associate at the Department of Botany of the Smithsonian Institution and President of the Amazon Conservation Team; a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting biological and cultural diversity of the tropical rain forest.
The author of numerous scientific papers and reports, Dr. Plotkin received the 1994 San Diego Zoo Gold Medal for Conservation, one of the top awards in the environmental field (previous winners include Jane Goodall, Sir David Attenborough, and His Royal Highness Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh). A spellbinding orator and storyteller, Dr. Plotkin’s work has been featured in a PBS Nova documentary, in an Emmy-winning Fox TV documentary, on the NBC Nightly News and Today Show, and on CBS’s 48 hours. Dr. Plotkin has also been the subject of several articles in Life, Newsweek, Smithsonian, Elle, People, The New York Times, and on National Public Radio. He co-edited Sustainable Harvest and Use of Rain Forest Products (Island Press).
Dr. Plotkin’s book, Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice (Viking-Penguin) is currently in the nineteenth printing and has also been published in Dutch, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. A children’s version, entitled The Shaman’s Apprentice – A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest co-written and illustrated by acclaimed author Lynne (The Great Kapok Tree) Cherry, was published by Harcourt-Brace in the summer of 1997. Smithsonian magazine hailed it as “the outstanding environmental and natural history title of the year.” Dr. Plotkin’s most recent book, Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature’s Healing Secrets, was recently published by Viking-Penguin.
His next book, The Killers Within, focuses on drug-resistant bacteria and will be published by Little Brown in September of 2002. The Killers Within is coauthored with Michael Shnayerson.
Dr. Plotkin’s work hit the IMAX screen in the film “Amazon”, which was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Short Documentary.