Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan is a writer, teacher, and activist. He is most recently the author of A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness. Pollan is the author of nine previous books, including This is Your Mind on Plants, How to Change Your Mind, Cooked, Food Rules, In Defense of Food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and The Botany of Desire, all of which were New York Times bestsellers. The Omnivore’s Dilemma and How to Change Your Mind were named among the 10 best books of the year by the New York Times. Pollan teaches writing in the English department at Harvard and for many years served as the Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Several of his books have been adapted for television: series based on How to Change Your Mind (2022) and Cooked (2015) are streaming on Netflix and both The Botany of Desire and In Defense of Food premiered on PBS. In 2010, Time magazine named Pollan one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2022–2023, he was a Guggenheim Fellow. Pollan lives in Berkeley with his wife, the painter Judith Belzer.