Draft:Merlin Sheldrake

Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist, author and speaker. His research focuses on mycorrhiza and mycorrhizal fungi.

Biography
Merlin grew up in London. He is the son of Rupert Sheldrake and author and therapist Jill Purce. He is the brother of the musician Cosmo Sheldrake.

Education
Sheldrake received his undergraduate degree from Cambridge in biological sciences, where he also earned a Master's in the history and philosophy of science. For his Ph.D in Tropical ecology from Cambridge, he conducted research into mycorrhizal fungi in tropical forests. Sheldrake was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, conducting Ph.D research on the STRI-administered Barro Colorado Island.

Career
Merlin is the author of Entangled Life: How fungi make our worlds, change our minds and shape our futures, which won numerous awards and prizes including the Royal Society Science Book prize, and was an inspiration for the Spring 2021 couture collection by Iris van Herpen.

He is the presenter and executive producer of the IMAX film "Fungi: Web of Life" narrated by Bjork.

He is involved in the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN). Launched in 2021, SPUN is a science-based initiative to map and protect the mycorrhizal networks that regulate the Earth’s climate and ecosystems. The goals of SPUN are mapping, protecting, and harnessing mycorrhizal fungi.

He co-launched the flora fauna funga (FFF) initiative with Guiliana Furci and César Rodríguez-Garavito. More than 2000 signatories have added their names to the FFF Initiative's call to include fungi within conservation frameworks and initiatives. Thanks to the efforts of FFF Initiative, a number of prominent organisations and agencies have adopted mycologically inclusive language calling for the recognition of fungi as crucial to efforts to protect and restore the planet. Organisations include re:wild, the IUCN steering committee and government agencies in Australia, Brazil and Iceland.

He is a research associate at the Vrije Universitiet Amsterdam, where he works with the Kiers lab, using nanoprobes and high-resolution imaging to map the nutrient flows and architecture of plant-fungal networks.

He is an advisor to the Fungi Foundation.

In 2021, he served as a consultant for Stella McCartney's fungal-themed runway show in Paris, which included items made from "mycelium leather" and various mushroom-inspired fashion items.

Prizes and Awards
Sheldrake is the author of Entangled Life.

Entangled Life book was named on Time magazine's list of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2020, The Daily Telegraph list of the 50 Best Books of 2020, and was chosen as one of the best books of 2020 by The Times, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail. It was serialized on BBC Radio 4 as the book of the week. It won the 2021 Royal Society Science Books Prize and the Wainwright Prize in the Global Conservation Writing category. It was shortlisted for the 2021 British Book Award for Non-Fiction: Narrative Book of the Year.