Merlin Sheldrake is author of the book Entangled Life and presenter of IMAX movie Fungi: Web of Life. Find out more about the fungi expert with our 60-second guide. <\/p>
Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and author.<\/p>
Born in 1987, Merlin grew up in Hampstead in North London. His father, Rupert Sheldrake, is a highly regarded biologist himself, though best known for his controversial theory called morphic resonance; Sheldrake (senior) describes it as \u201ca process whereby self-organising systems inherit a memory from previous similar systems\u201d. (Sheldrake senior carried out experiments that suggested dogs know when their owners are leaving their offices.)<\/p>
Sheldrake junior was encouraged to spend time outdoors exploring places such as nearby Hampstead Heath<\/a>, and his father was a huge influence on him. That his father\u2019s unorthodox ideas have been largely rejected by mainstream scientists has also helped to shape his thinking. \u201cIt was always very clear to me that scientific norms and paradigms are heavily policed when you raise questions which are at the boundary of what is thought to be acceptable,\u201d he says.<\/p> Merlin did his PhD in Panama, investigating underground fungal networks in tropical rainforests, and is now a research associate at Vrije University in Amsterdam. Having spent four years writing and promoting Entangled Life<\/a> (published in 2020), Merlin return to his research into mycelial networks.<\/p> In autumn 2023, Merlin presented the IMAX movie Fungi: Web of Life<\/a>, narrated by Bj\u00f6rk.<\/p>