Mark Moffett is a Research Associate at the Smithsonian. During his six years as a visiting scholar at the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard, Mark worked on a synthesis on how societies stay together and fall apart, across species and in humans right up to the present day. His most recent book ties biology with modern psychology and anthropology with surprising insights. The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive and Fall has been called “a magisterial work of monumental importance” by Scientific American columnist Michael Shermer, while Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired magazine, tells us to “read this manifesto if you like to have your mind changed.”
One of only a handful of people to earn a PhD under E.O. Wilson, Moffett is a modern-day explorer with more than a little luck on his side, having accidentally sat on the world’s deadliest snake, battled drug lords with dart guns, and scrambled up a tree to escape bull elephants. His research has focused on the structure of rainforest canopies, social complexity in ants, and the evolution of societies generally.