Stephen C. Sillett, Professor and Kenneth L. Fisher Chair in Redwood Forest Ecology at Humboldt State University, is one of the key figures in The Wild Treesthe latest book by Richard Preston. Preston is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, and is widely considered one of the world’s leading science writers. His seven books include The Hot Zone, The Cobra Event, and The Demon in the Freezer. Preston’s writing has won numerous awards, including the American Institute of Physics Award and the National Magazine Award.
Richard Preston has begun an ambitious promotional tour that will soon have him discussing Professor Sillett’s life and research on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (airing tonight at 11 p.m., as well as Friday April 13th at 8 p.m., on Comedy Central), NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show (Monday April 16th ), and The Colbert Report (Monday May 7th at 11:30 p.m./Tuesday May 8th at 8:30 p.m. on Comedy Central).
The Wild Trees covers Professor Silletts and his scientific collaborators pioneering research in redwood forest canopies. Sillett is widely recognized as the foremost expert on redwood trees. His research routinely takes him to the tops of the world’s tallest trees. There, suspended hundreds of feet above the ground, he and his students have discovered a rich world of plant and animal life previously unknown to science.
Sillett is the rare scientist whose findings have been chronicled in both scientific journals and the mainstream press. His work has been profiled in popular magazines such as The New Yorker, Discover, New Scientist, and National Geographic as well as on television (e.g., National Geographic’s Wild Chronicles, BBC’s Planet Earth, PBS’s Oregon Field Guide), and film (MacGillivray-Freeman’s Adventures in Wild California).
Humboldt State University recently created a new Web site (www.humboldt.edu/~sillett) which takes viewers on several photo tours into the forest canopy alongside Sillett and his colleagues. The website also enables Sillett to explain the important role redwood forests play in the larger environment.
“For years now,” explains Sillett, “I’ve been getting all these calls from people asking me, ‘What’s it look like up there in the trees?’ I think Preston’s book is going to create an even greater need for people to see what he’s talking about. The new Web site is a compilation of all these amazing images that exist nowhere else on earth.I’m really proud of it. Andrea Arbogast, the web designer, did a fantastic job building the site.”
Now, with the release of The Wild Trees, Sillett’s work will receive even greater attention. Though released just two days ago, Richard Preston’s latest book has already received positive reviews from the L.A. Times, the Chicago Sun Times, Entertainment Weekly, and Discover Magazine.
“Richard is just an amazingly gifted writer,” says Sillett. “He’s able to put science in a more human perspective. He first wrote about my work, for The New Yorker, in 2005. I’ve been approached by all sorts of people since then who read that article and came away understanding my research. Richard really got through to people in a way that I’ve never been able to by simply publishing my scientific papers on redwoods. So working with Richard on this book was a wise move because it has the potential to truly increase human awareness of these important trees. Theres a lot of my life in the bookRichard’s style is to focus on the human element behind sciencebut, in the end, it’s mostly about the trees.”