Mark J. Plotkin (born May 21, 1955) is an ethnobotanist and a plant explorer in the Neotropics, where he is an expert on rainforest ecosystems. Plotkin is an advocate for tropical rainforest conservation and host of Plants of the Gods: Hallucinogens, Healing, Culture and Conservation podcast. Background and career After attending Isidore Newman School in New Orleans, Plotkin worked at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology when he joined an expedition searching for an elusive crocodilian species in 1978 and was galvanized into returning to education. He completed his bachelor of liberal arts degree at Harvard University's Harvard Extension School, his master's degree in forestry at Yale School of Forestry, and his Ph.D. at Tufts University; during which he completed a handbook for the Tiriyó people of Suriname detailing their own medicinal plants—the only other book printed in Tiriyó language being the Bible. He went on to do research at Harvard under Richard Evans Schultes. He is the author of the book Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice. Other critically acclaimed books by Plotkin include Medicine Quest, The Killers Within: the Deadly Rise of Drug-Resistant Bacteria (with Michael Shnayerson), and The Shaman's Apprentice, (a children's book with Lynne Cherry). In 1995, Plotkin and prominent Costa Rican conservationist Liliana Madrigal formed the Amazon Conservation Team to protect Amazonian rainforest in partnership with local indigenous peoples. ACT has now worked with 50 tribes throughout Amazonia. Plotkin continues to work with the Tirio of Suriname, and in Brazil as well. He is featured in the 1997 IMAX film Amazon, written by photojournalist Loren McIntyre. Plotkin received the San Diego Zoo Gold Medal for Conservation (1993) and the Roy Chapman Andrews Distinguished Explorer Award (2004). Time called him an "Environmental Hero for the Planet" (2001) and Smithsonian hailed him as one of "35 Who Made a Difference" (2005), along with other notables like Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, and fellow New Orleanian Wynton Marsalis. In March 2008, Plotkin and Madrigal were among those chosen as "Social Entrepreneurs of the Year" by the Skoll Foundation. In May 2010, Mark Plotkin received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. The degree citation read in part: "For teaching us that the loss of knowledge and species anywhere impoverishes us all; for combining humanitarian vision with academic rigor and moral sensibility; and for reminding us always, with clarity and passion and