Photo by: Wade Davis

Wade Davis

Photographer

An Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society, Wade Davis has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.”

An ethnographer, writer, photographer and filmmaker, he holds degrees in anthropology and biology and received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany, all from Harvard University. Mostly through the Harvard Botanical Museum, he spent over three years in the Amazon and Andes as a plant explorer, living among 15 indigenous groups in eight Latin American nations while making some 6,000 botanical collections. His work later took him to Haiti to investigate folk preparations implicated in the creation of zombies, an assignment that led to his writing The Serpent and the Rainbow, an international best-seller later released as a film by Universal Pictures.

Davis is the author of 200 scientific and popular articles and 17 books. His many film credits include Light at the Edge of the World, an eight-hour documentary series written and produced for the National Geographic. In 2009, he received the Gold Medal from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society for his contributions to anthropology and conservation, and he is the 2011 recipient of the Explorers Medal, the highest award of the Explorers’ Club and the 2012 David Fairchild Medal for Plant Exploration.

As of November 17, 2012

On The Web

www.daviswade.com/

/WadeDavisExplorer

@authorwadedavis

Featured Photographs

You May Also Like

Lecture

Wade Davis: The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World

Wade Davis discusses his extensive career as an anthropologist, author, photographer and filmmaker.
Exhibit

No Strangers: Ancient Wisdom in a Modern World

no strangers explores the ways cultures express a shared humanity and navigate the circle of life.
Photographer

Chris Rainier

Photographer Chris Rainier is a master at creating powerful images that document the anthropological story of indigenous cultures whose ways are under threat.
Photographer

Chris Johns

As executive vice president and group editorial director of National Geographic and editor in chief of National Geographic magazine, Chris Johns oversees the Society’s core digital and print content.
Photographer

Lynn Johnson

Lynn Johnson is known for her intense and sensitive work, dividing her time between assignments for National Geographic and various foundations.
Photographer

Randy Olson

Stories that have become most important to Randy Olson involve cultures or environments that are under threat, usually from some form of commercial consumption.
Photographer

Hamid Sardar-Afkhami

Hamid Sardar-Afkhami is a writer, photographer and award-winning filmmaker based in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Paris, France.
Photographer

Steve McCurry

For over 30 years, Steve McCurry has been a one of the most iconic voices in contemporary photography, with scores of magazine and book covers, over a dozen books and numerous exhibitions around the world to his name.
Photographer

Carol Beckwith & Angela Fisher

Thirty-five years ago, American-born Carol Beckwith and Australian Angela Fisher met in Kenya and began a relationship with the African continent, journeying over 270,000 miles, through 40 countries and recording 150 African cultures.
Photographer

Bjoern Lauen

Bjoern Lauen has been involved in photography for the last 20 years.
Photographer

Brent Lewin

His work has largely focused on the struggle to preserve traditional cultural identity in the face of globalization.
Photographer

Budi Dharmawan

Budi N D Dharmawan is an independent documentary photographer in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, who is interested in socual and cultural issues.
Photographer

Carlos Villalon

Since 2006, Carlos Villalon has been photographing in the Darién Gap, the frontier between Colombia and Panama, where the Pan American highway disappears and gives way to a network of rivers, forests and swamps.
Photographer

Dani Planas Labad

Dani Planas Labad is a traveller who loves photography or maybe a photographer who loves to travel.
Photographer

Jan C. Schlegel

Jan C Schlegel was born in the Black Forest of Germany. He discovered his passion for photography at the age of 14.