Mark J. Plotkin, Ph.D., was born and raised in New Orleans and educated at Harvard, Yale, and Tufts. Trained as an ethnobotanist, he has done extensive research throughout the lowlands of tropical South America. He is a co-founder of the Amazon Conservation Team, where he currently serves as president. Dr. Plotkin has previously served as a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution and at the Botanical Museum of Harvard University, the director of plant conservation at the World Wildlife Fund, and the vice president of Conservation International. His research has been featured in Life, Newsweek, Smithsonian, Time, and The New York Times as well as PBS's Nova and the Academy Award-winning documentary Amazon.