Peter Raven is a nationally and internationally renowned conservationist who holds the position of Engelmann Professor of Botany at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Raven also serves as Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, where he has transformed the Garden into one of the world's leading plant conservation centers. Prior to arriving in St. Louis, Dr. Raven completed his undergraduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, secured a Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles, and taught for nine years at Stanford University.

Today Raven focuses much of his attention to what he considers the menace of a "sixth extinction" – a potential mass extinction of living organisms that would be brought about by the mushrooming human population and by human carelessness and commerce. In the new millennium, Dr. Raven is calling for an "age of biology," within which humans strive to fully understand the diversity of the worlds living organisms and use the properties of those organisms as a means to develop sustainability and conserve biodiversity.

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Peter Raven is a nationally and internationally renowned conservationist who holds the position of Engelmann Professor of Botany at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Raven also serves as Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, where he has transformed the Garden into one of the world's leading plant conservation centers. Prior to arriving in St. Louis, Dr. Raven completed his undergraduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, secured a Ph . . . full bio