Advisory Board

Merlin Sheldrake

Biologist and author

Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and a writer with a background in plant sciences, microbiology, ecology, and the history and philosophy of science. He received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. He sits on the advisory boards of the Fungi Foundation and the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and is a research associate at the Vrije University, Amsterdam.

Cecilia Vicuña

Poet, artist, activist and filmmaker

Cecilia Vicuña is a Chilean poet, artist, activist, and filmmaker whose work addresses ecological destruction, human rights, and cultural homogenization. Born in Santiago and exiled after the 1973 coup, she coined the term "Arte Precario" in the 1960s to describe her ephemeral works made of debris, including her quipus (knot in Quechua), envisioned as poems in space. A celebrated poet and author of over 30 books, her work has been exhibited globally and is part of major museum collections. Vicuña has received numerous honors, including the 2023 Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas de Chile, membership in the U.S. Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Gold Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2022 Venice Biennale.

David S. Hibbett

Professor of Biology, Clark University

David S. Hibbett is a Professor of Biology at Clark University, in Massachusetts, USA. His laboratory studies diversity, evolution, and genomics of mushroom-forming fungi, including polypores and the shiitake genus Lentinula. Hibbett received his PhD from Duke University in 1991 and then spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Tottori Mycological Institute, Tottori, Japan, followed by a second post-doc at the Harvard University Herbaria, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He joined the faculty of Clark University in 1999. Hibbett is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a former President of the Mycological Society of America.

Cosmo Sheldrake

Multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, live improviser, and field recordist

Cosmo is a UK-based multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, live improviser, and field recordist. Animated by themes of interconnection and symbiosis, Cosmo’s musical imagination is rooted in practices of listening both to human and more-than-human sound worlds. He has collaborated with a wide range of field recordists and biologists, including Steve Simpson at Bristol University, the sound recordist and acoustic ecologist Bernie Krause –some of whose recordings feature on Cosmo’s most recent album, Eye to the Ear (2024) –Giuliana Furci of the Fungi Foundation, and Toby Kiers of the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks. Based on his exploration of the sounds of the living world, Cosmo has developed an approach to sharing the publishing royalties of his new releases, attempting to directly return funds to the animals and places that have inspired –and, on a number of tracks, co-authored – the music. This is the case with his EPs Wake Up Calls and Wild Wet World, of which 50% of the publishing royalties are distributed to conservation organisations and charities working with the animals and ecosystems featured. In addition, Cosmo is a founding donor to Earth Percent.

Sophia Roe

Chef, writer, and Emmy-Award nominated TV host

Sophia Roe is a regarded chef, writer, and Emmy-Award nominated TV host known for her distinct lens on honesty, diversity and inclusivity. Her innate passion for food has always been connected to an understanding—from a young age—that some people have access to nutritious foods, while others simply and problematically do not. This duality is the foundation for Sophia’s work: celebrating the beauty and art in cooking while creating resources to advance food justice, build more sustainable and equitable systems, and combat industry whitewashing.

Robert A. Blanchette

Professor of Forest Pathology, University of Minnesota

Bob Blanchette is a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Minnesota where he teaches classes and carries out research on the biology and ecology of fungi that grow on and attack trees and wood. He also has been involved with many ethnomycologial investigations to better understand how Indigenous People from different parts of the world used forest fungi. Other current studies include fungi associated with the insects, wood decay fungi from the Amazon rainforests and studies of the extraordinary fungi in extreme environments of Polar Regions, dry deserts and subterranean mines and caves. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow of the American Phytopathological Society and Fellow of the International Academy of Wood Science.