Dr. David Suzuki is an award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster. He is renowned for his radio and television programs that explain the complexities of the natural sciences in a compelling, easily understood way.
Suzuki is a geneticist. He graduated from Amherst College in 1958 with an Honors BA in biology, followed by a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961. He held a research associateship in the biology division of Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Lab (1961 – 62), was an Assistant Professor in Genetics at the University of Alberta (1962 – 63) and since then has been a faculty member of the University of British Columbia. He is now Professor Emeritus at UBC.
Suzuki has written 52 books, including 19 for children. His 1976 textbook An Introduction to Genetic Analysis, remains the most widely used genetics text book in the US and has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Greek, Indonesian, Arabic, French and German.
Suzuki has received consistently high acclaim for his 30 years of award-winning work in broadcasting. In 1974 he developed and hosted the long-running popular science program Quirks and Quarks on CBC Radio. He has since presented two influential documentary CBC radio series on the environment, It’s a Matter of Survival and From Naked Ape to Superspecies.
His national television career began with CBC in 1971 when he wrote and hosted Suzuki on Science. He was host of Science Magazine (1974 – 79) then created and hosted a number of television specials, and in 1979 became the host of the award-winning series, The Nature of Things with David Suzuki. For his television work, he has won four Gemini Awards from the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television.
He is the co-founder of the environmental organization, the David Suzuki Foundation.
