Menno Schilthuizen (1965) is a professor of evolution and biodiversity at Leiden University and a senior researcher at the National Natural History Museum 'Naturalis' in Leiden, the Netherlands. His scientific research has involved a variety of subjects, such as the evolution of snail shells, beetle penises, insect feeding on invasive plants, and the biodiversity of caves and limestone hills. This has taken him to lots of places, from the mountains of Crete (where he did his PhD), caves in Montenegro and the heart of the rainforest of Borneo (where he worked for six year), to city parks in the Netherlands. 

Besides his academic work, he has always been active as a science communicator, writing books and articles for the general public, and giving lectures. Some of his more notable appearances are his TED and TED-Ed lectures, and his appearance with actress Isabella Rossellini at the New York Public Library. His latest book, Darwin Comes to Town presents the flora and fauna of our cities as an exciting, new man-made ecosystem that is rapidly evolving around us. The Sunday Times wrote of it, “Schilthuizen is taking on three centuries of literature and polemic that defends the virtues of rural nature against the vices of city life.... This is a spellbinding and important book.... The message is thrilling.”

More recently, Schilthuizen has taken his science communication one step further and through his company Taxon Expeditions now organizes real scientific expeditions for non-biologists to biodiversity hots all over the world (including both rainforests and mountaintops, but also urban parks). The key feature of these trips is to discover and publish entirely new species of wildlife.