David Quammen

David Quammen (born February 1948) is an American science, nature and travel writer and the author of fifteen books. He wrote a column called "Natural Acts" for Outside magazine for fifteen years. His articles have also appeared in National Geographic, Harper's, Rolling Stone, the New York Times Book Review and other periodicals.In 2013, Quammen's book Spillover was shortlisted for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Quammen graduated from St. Xavier High School in 1966. He is a Yale graduate and former Rhodes Scholar; during his graduate studies at Oxford, he studied literature, concentrating on the works of William Faulkner.

Quammen was drawn to the state of Montana in the early 1970s for the trout fishing. He still lives in Montana, while traveling widely for National Geographicand to research his books.During autumn 2014, he was much involved, because of books and articles he has published, in the public discussion of the Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa and its spread beyond.

From 2007 to 2009 he was the Wallace Stegner Professor of Western American Studies at Montana State University.

• 1970 Rhodes Scholarship
• 1987 National Magazine Award
• 1988 Guggenheim Fellowship
• 1994 National Magazine Award
• 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• 1996 Natural World Book Prize
• 1997 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism
• 1997 Lannan Foundation Fellowship
• 1997 John Burroughs Medal for nature writing
• 2000 Honorary doctorate from Montana State University
• 2001 PEN/Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay for The Boilerplate Rhino
• 2005 National Magazine Award
• 2009 Honorary doctorate from Colorado College
• 2012 The Stephen Jay Gould Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution.
• 2013 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, finalist for Spillover