BIOGRAPHY

Wade Davis is an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society. Named by the Geographic as one of the "Explorers for the Millennium", Wade Davis is an anthropologist and plant explorer who received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany from Harvard University. Described by ABC 20/20 as a real life Indiana Jones, Davis spent three years in the Amazon and Andes searching for new medicinal drugs, before heading to Haiti to investigate folk poisons used to create zombies. This investigation is chronicled in his book The Serpent and the Rainbow, an international best-seller that appeared in 12 languages and was later released by Universal as a feature film. From Haiti Davis moved to Borneo where he lived among the Penan, the last nomads of Southeast Asia. His recent travels have taken him to East Africa, the high Arctic, Tibet, the Orinoco of Venezuela, and the deserts of Mali and Niger.

A frequent contributor to National Geographic, Outside, Men's Journal, Conde Nast Traveler, Premiere, and other international publications, Davis is the author of nine books including Shadows in the Sun (1998), Rainforest (1998), The Clouded Leopard (1998), and One River (1996) which was nominated for the 1997 Governor General's Award, Canada's most prestigious literary prize. His latest book is Light at the Edge of the World. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2002 Lowell Thomas Medal (The Explorer's Club) and the 2002 Lannan Foundation $125,000 prize for literary non-fiction.

Davis' television credits include the award winning documentaries, Spirit of the Mask, Cry of the Forgotten People, and Earthguide, a 13 part series that aired on the Discovery Channel. His research expeditions have been the subject of some 600 print, radio and television interviews and reports in Europe, North and South America and the Far East, and have inspired numerous documentary films as well as three episodes of the X-files.

A professional speaker for nearly twenty years, Davis has lectured at the American Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, California Academy of Sciences, Missouri Botanical Garden, Field Museum of Natural History, New York Botanical Garden, National Geographic Society, Royal Ontario Museum, the Explorer's Club, the Royal Geographical Society, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank as well as more than 70 major universities, including Harvard, Oxford, M.I.T. and Berkeley. He has spoken at the Aspen Institute, Bohemian Grove and on several occasions for the Young President's Organization. His corporate clients have included the Healthcare Association of Southern California, National Science Teachers Association, NDMA (Nonprescriptive Drug Manufacturers Association), Canadian Association of Petroleum Geologists, Canadian Association of Exploration Geophysicists, American Trial Lawyer's Association, American Judges Association, American Bankers Association, Hallmark, Centaur Technology, Canadian Association of Actuaries, Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, Bank of Nova Scotia, as well as several leading pharmaceutical companies including Warner-Lambert, Bayer, Miles, Bristol-Myers, and Abbott Laboratories.

Described by David Suzuki as a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all life's diversity Wade Davis will take you on a visual journey that you will never forget.

Davis is married to Gail Percy. When not in the field they divide their time between Washington and a fishing lodge in the Stikine Valley of northern British Columbia. They have two children, Tara aged 14 and Raina who is 11.