The Wilson Foundation has assembled a creative team of educators and multimedia specialists to create E. O. Wilson’s Life on Earth. Digital production and animation is under the direction of Digizyme, Inc., a scientific visualization firm in Brookline, Massachusetts, led by Gaël McGill. Additional animations are produced by WEHI-TV, a 3D animation team led by Drew Berry at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, Australia.
Edward O. Wilson
Leader
E. O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus at Harvard, is a distinguished biologist, teacher, and writer. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society, his many literary awards include two Pulitzer Prizes, and he has received over 60 awards for his scientific work, including the National Medal of Science and the Crafoord Prize.
Morgan Ryan
Project Director
Before heading up the Life on Earth project, Morgan was managing editor of American Scientist magazine. As a textbook development editor for twenty years, he has served as executive editor for divisions of Prentice Hall and HarperCollins. As a digital producer, writer, and 3D animator, he has developed course-length online materials for college biology (Prentice-Hall), high school chemistry (Holt MacDougall), and molecular biology (McGraw-Hill’s AccessScience.com).
Gaël McGill
Digital Media Director
Gaël is Director of Molecular Visualization at the Center for Molecular and Cellular Dynamics at Harvard Medical School, where he also teaches scientific visualization. He is the founder and CEO of Digizyme, Inc., a firm dedicated to the visualization and communication of science through advanced technology applications. He is also the creator of the online portal molecularmovies.org and the Molecular Maya (mMaya) software toolkit, as well as a technical editor for Wiley/SYBEX Publishing. He received his B.A. summa cum laude in Biology, Music, and Art History from Swarthmore College and received his Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School in the Division of Medical Sciences (Biochemistry & Molecular Pharmacology).
Drew Berry
Animation Director
Drew Berry is a biomedical animator specializing in science topics at the microscopic scale. In 2010, Drew was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Foundation fellowship for his collected work and his wide influence in the field of scientific visualization. He has a masters degree in cell biology and works at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI), Australia. He has spent the last dozen years developing novel, state-of-the-art animation techniques that illuminate the frontiers of cellular and molecular biology. His work has been featured in many national news and current affairs programs, documentaries, museum exhibitions, and education multimedia.
Karen Hopkin
Writer
Karen Hopkin is a science journalist and textbook author who has worked in print, online, and for broadcast. She received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1992, and began her writing career soon after. She has developed material for broadcast as an AAAS Mass Media Fellow and was a producer for NPR’s Talk of the Nation: Science Friday. After a yearlong Knight Fellowship at MIT, Hopkin signed on as an author on Bruce Alberts’ market-leading undergraduate textbook, Essential Cell Biology. Hopkin is currently a columnist for The Scientist and a regular contributor to Scientific American’s daily podcast, 60-Second Science.
Jay Vavra
Education Director
Jay Vavra directs the biology education program at High Tech High. He studied biology at Stanford University and earned his Ph.D. in marine biology from the University of Southern California. His students have published three books on various aspects of urban ecology in San Diego. His teaching awards include the Genzyme-Invitrogen Biotech Educator of the Year Award (2008), the National Education Association Christa McAuliffe Awardand an Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence (2007). He and his eleventh graders received a Busch Gardens–Fuji Film Environmental Excellence Award, and their film about the African bushmeat crisis was selected Best in Show at the National Council on Science and the Environment convention (2008).
