Wade Davis, a renowned anthropologist and botanical explorer, earned his Ph.D. in ethnobotany from Harvard University.
As a plant explorer, he spent over three years in the Amazon and Andes, living among 15 indigenous groups in eight Latin American nations, and made around 6,000 botanical collections through the Harvard Botanical Museum.
His work took him to Haiti, where he investigated folk preparations allegedly linked to the creation of zombies, leading to the writing of Passage of Darkness (1988) and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1986),an international best-seller that was translated into 10 languages and later adapted into a motion picture by Universal Studios.
Davis is the author of five other books, including Shadows in the Sun (1998) and One River (1996).
Born on December 14, 1953, in British Columbia, Davis is a citizen of both Canada and Ireland.
Throughout his career, he has worked as a guide, park ranger, and forestry engineer, and has conducted ethnographic fieldwork among several indigenous societies in northern Canada.
Davis has published numerous scientific and popular articles on a wide range of topics, including Haitian voodoo, Amazonian myth and religion, the global biodiversity crisis, the traditional use of psychotropic drugs, and the ethnobotany of South American Indians.
His photographs have been widely published, and he has traveled to various parts of the world, including Peru, Borneo, Tibet, the high Arctic, the Orinoco Delta of Venezuela, and northern Kenya.
Davis is a research associate of the Institute of Economic Botany of the New York Botanical Garden and serves on the boards of several NGOs dedicated to conservation-based development and the protection of cultural and biological diversity, including the David Suzuki Foundation, Ecotrust, Future Generations, and Cultural Survival.
In addition to his writing, Davis has also worked in television, hosting and co-writing the 13-part series Earthguide, and contributing to documentaries such as Spirit of the Mask, Cry of the Forgotten People, and Forests Forever.