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Faculty Biographies
Paul Stamets
Paul Stamets, D.Sc.(Hon.), is the founder of Fungi Perfecti (www.fungi.com), and has been a dedicated mycologist for over thirty years. Over this time, he has discovered and coauthored four new species of mushrooms, received eight patents, written six books and pioneered countless techniques in the field of edible and functional food mushroom cultivation. Two of his books, Growing Gourmet & Medicinal Mushrooms and The Mushroom Cultivator are central textbooks for, and have been heralded as the ‘bibles’ by the mushroom industry. His latest book, Mycelium Running, How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, has propelled his vision of using mushrooms to help save ecosystems and improve population health to the world stage. He is writing a new book: The Medicinal Mushroom Guide.
Paul sees the ancient Old Growth forests of the Pacific Northwest as a resource of incalculable value, especially in terms of its fungal genome. A dedicated hiker and explorer, his passion is to preserve and protect as many ancestral strains of mushrooms as possible from these pristine woodlands. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of Host Defense mushroom products goes toward research to save rare strains of mushrooms that dwell within the old growth forests.
Paul has received numerous awards and honors for his contributions to the science of medicinal mushrooms and ecology. His TED (2008) talk "How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World" has been rated in the top 10 of all TED talks, and viewed more than 1,700,000 times. His TEDMED (2011) introduced medicinal mushrooms to more than 800 physicians. Both TED and TEDMED talks have received 99% positive reviews on youtube.com.