Virginia Morell

Virginia Morell is an acclaimed science journalist and author. A contributing correspondent for Science, she has covered evolutionary and conservation biology since 1990. A passionate lover of the natural world and a creative thinker, her reporting keeps her in close communications with leading scientists in her fields of interest. Morell is also a regular contributor to National Geographic and Conde Nast Traveler. In 2004, her National Geographic article on climate change was a finalist for Best Environmental Article from the Society of Environmental Journalists.In addition to her journalistic work, Morell is the author of three celebrated books. The New York Times awarded a Notable Book of the Year to Ancestral Passions, her dramatic biography of the famed Leakey family and their notable findings. Blue Nile, about her journey down the Blue Nile to Sudan, was a San Francisco Chronicle Best Travel Book. And The Washington Post listed Wildlife Wars, which she co-authored with Richard Leakey, as one of their Best Books of the Year. An accomplished public speaker, Morell spent March 2009 as a principal lecturer for National Geographic Society’s Expeditions Program on one of its exclusive, round-the-world trips. She lives in Ashland, Oregon with her husband, writer Michael McRae, a Calico cat, Nini, and a smart, six-year-old American Working Farm Collie, Buckaroo.Read “Animal Minds”, Virginia Morell’s National Geographic cover story that explores animal intelligence, the subject of her upcoming book from Crown, Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures, which will be published in February 2013. Elizabeth Kolbert selected this article for the Best American Science and Nature Writing 2009 (Houghton Mifflin).Published workAnimal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures (Crown, February 2013); Wildlife Wars, My Fight to Save Africa's Natural Treasures (St. Martin’s Press, September 2001); Blue Nile: Ethiopia's River of Magic and Mystery (National Geographic Books, June 2001); Ancestral Passions, The Leakey Family and the Quest for Humankind's Beginnings (Simon and Schuster, August 1996)