Glenn H. Shepard Jr. attended Princeton University and received his doctorate in Medical Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley. As an ethnobotanist, medical anthropologist, and filmmaker, he has carried out fieldwork for over thirty years among diverse indigenous peoples around the world, particularly in Amazonia. He has published over 140 research articles on topics including shamanism and traditional medicine, indigenous health and resource management, the rights of isolated peoples and indigenous appropriations of digital media. He has participated in the production of several films, including the Emmy Award-winning documentary, Spirits of the Rainforest. His research, photography and writing has gained visibility in magazines like National Geographic, The New Yorker, Financial Times and The New York Review of Books. He is currently on leave from the Human Sciences Division at the Goeldi Museum in Belém, Brazil. He blogs at Notes from the Ethnoground (http://ethnoground.blogspot.com/).