Dr. Suzuki is an award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster. His television appearances, explaining the complexities of the natural sciences in a compelling, easily understood way, have consistently received high acclaim for over 30 years. He is the only network television science host who was actually a practising scientist.
His work on THE NATURE OF THINGS has won him three Gemini Awards and an ACTRA Award as Best Host. He was also host of the eight-part Planet For The Taking, also on CBC-TV. His TV series for BBC and PBS, The Secret of Life, was internationally praised, as was his five-part series The Brain, on the U.S. Discovery Channel.
He originated the popular CBC Radio series Quirks and Quarks in 1974 and hosted it until 1979. In 1989, he hosted the five-part radio series It's A Matter of Survival. His most recent radio endeavour was the eight-part series, From Naked Ape to Superspecies, broadcast on CBC Radio, and released in book form by Stoddart.
David Takayoshi Suzuki was born in Vancouver in 1936. In 1942, at age six, he was interned in the B.C. interior along with his Canadian-born parents under the War Measures Act. This ignominious experience turned out to be a "defining moment" for young David. There was no school the first year and he spent his time in the mountains, exploring nature. He had been encouraged by his father, an amateur nature enthusiast, who used to take David camping and fishing.
After the war, the Suzuki family - which had lost its dry-cleaning business in B.C. - moved to Leamington and, later, London, Ontario, where David spent many hours exploring the nature of Point Pelee and the swamps around London.
Suzuki graduated from Amherst College in 1958 with an Honours BA in Biology, and took his doctorate in Zoology from the University of Chicago. He held a research associateship in the biology division at Oak National Laboratory (1961-62), and was Assistant Professor in Genetics at the University of Alberta in 1962-63, and moved to the University of British Columbia in 1963 as an Assistant Professor in Zoology. In 1969, at age 33, he became a Full Professor. For three of those years, he held the E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship for the Outstanding Research Scientist in Canada under the age of 35.
Prior to joining THE NATURE OF THINGS, he ran the biggest genetics lab in Canada, at U.B.C. He was also a professor at U.B.C.'s Sustainable Development Research Institute and is now an emeritus professor there.
Dr. Suzuki has been elected to the Royal Society of Canada and the Order of Canada, and is the author of over 100 publications in scientific journals, and of 34 books. He originated and co-wrote the text An Introduction to Genetic Analysis (W.H. Freeman & Co.), which is currently in its sixth edition, and is the most widely used genetics text in the world. His best-selling autobiography, Metamorphosis, Stages In A Life, described his childhood, as well as his career in science, broadcasting and parenthood.
As chair of the charitable David Suzuki Foundation, Dr. Suzuki is recognized as a world leader in sustainable ecology. He is the recipient of UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for Science, the United Nations Environment Medal, the Royal Bank Achievement Award and the Global 500. He has received 15 honorary degrees in Canada, the U.S. and Australia.
Because of his experiences of internment, Dr. Suzuki was a member of the NAACP when he lived in the U.S. in the late 1950s and '60s. He is a director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Union and of the B.C. Civil Liberties Society.
Dr. Suzuki lives with his wife, Dr. Tara Cullis, and their two children in Vancouver, B.C. Dr. Cullis resigned her position as a Professor of Expository Writing at Harvard, to start the David Suzuki Foundation, where she has been its full-time volunteer President since 1990. The entire family has long been involved with Native issues, and has been adopted by the Haida people. As well, Dr. Suzuki has three grandchildren. In the little free time he has, David Suzuki still enjoys fishing, camping and exploring the world of insects and tidal pools.
