Dr. Stephan Harding was born in Venezuela in 1953. After his first degree in Zoology at Durham University he was a field assistant for the Smithsonian’s field ecology research in Venezuela. His doctorate at the University of Oxford was on the behavioural ecology of the muntjac deer.     

After teaching conservation biology at the National University of Costa Rica, he became a founder member of Schumacher College. Here he met James Lovelock – the originator of the Gaia hypothesis – with whom he has maintained a long-lasting friendship and scientific collaboration that lead to their joint appointment as founding chair holders of the Arne Naess Chair in Global Justice and the Environment at the University of Oslo.

Stephan is the author of Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia, which will soon be available in Spanish via Atalanta publishers in Spain. His latest book, Gaia Alchemy, will be published in January 2022 by Bear and Co.