Mark Plotkin, Ph.D., is an ethnobotanist who has been working in and on the Amazon for over four decades. He is an ethnobotanist known for his work in the Neotropics and for advocating rainforest conservation. After early field experience at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology inspired him to return to school, he earned degrees from Harvard Extension, Yale Forestry, and Tufts, producing along the way a medicinal‑plant handbook for the Tiriyó of Suriname.
He later worked with Richard Evans Schultes and became widely known through his book Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice, followed by Medicine Quest, The Killers Within (with Michael Shnayerson), and a children’s book version of The Shaman’s Apprentice. In 1995 he co‑founded the Amazon Conservation Team with Liliana Madrigal, partnering with more than 50 Indigenous communities across Amazonia, including long‑standing collaborations with the Tiriyó and groups in Brazil.
His work has been featured in the IMAX film Amazon, and he hosts the podcast Plants of the Gods. Plotkin has received major conservation and exploration honors, including the San Diego Zoo Gold Medal, the Roy Chapman Andrews Award, recognition from Time and Smithsonian, the Skoll Foundation’s Social Entrepreneur of the Year award, an honorary doctorate from Lewis & Clark College, an International Conservation Leadership award presented by Jane Goodall, the Yale Forestry Distinguished Alumni Award, and Harvard Extension’s Shinagel Award for Public Service. His writing and public outreach emphasize the scientific and cultural value of Indigenous knowledge, the medical potential of natural products, and the ecological importance of Amazonian systems, themes he further develops in The Amazon: What Everyone Needs to Know.
