PAUL STAMETS is the codirector and founder of the Rainforest Mushroom Genome and Mycodiversity Preservation Project, as well as the founder of Fungi Perfecti. He is the author of two fundamental textbooks, The Mushroom Cultivator and GROWING GOURMET AND MEDICINAL MUSHROOMS, and has been published in a variety of periodicals. He also gives more mycology talks than he can keep count of. Stamets, an advisor and consultant to the University of Arizona Medical School's Department for Integrative Medicine and the recipient of the Collective Heritage Institute's Bioneers Award in 1998, lives in Kamilche Point, Washington, with his collection of over 250 medicinal mushroom cultures.