Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist, writer, and speaker with a background in plant sciences, microbiology, ecology, and the history and philosophy of science. He received his Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

He is a research associate at Oxford University and Vrije University Amsterdam, UK Policy Lead at the Fungi Foundation, Chief Impact Officer at the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), and the 2025 Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice, NYU. In 2025, together with Giuliana Furci and Toby Kiers, he won a Climate Breakthrough Award for work using fungi to mitigate climate change.

His book Entangled Life is a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller that won the Royal Society Book Prize and the Wainwright Prize. It has been translated into thirty-two languages and sold more than a million copies worldwide. Merlin is also the presenter of Fungi: Web of Life, a giant-screen documentary narrated by Björk.

His research spans fungal biology, the history of Amazonian ethnobotany, and the relationship between sound and form in resonant systems. A keen brewer and fermenter, he is fascinated by the relationships that arise between humans and more-than-human organisms. He is also a musician who performs on the piano and accordion.