Alan Rayner was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1950. He obtained BA and PhD degrees in Natural Sciences at King’s College, Cambridge and is currently a Reader in Biology at the University of Bath.

He is an enthusiastic biological scientist, ecological philosopher, visual artist, poet and essayist. He has published around 150 scientific articles, 6 formal scientific books (including Degrees of Freedom - Living in Dynamic Boundaries, Imperial College Press, 1997), a 3 volume multi-author e-book (Inclusionality: The Science, Art and Spirituality of Space, Place and Evolution, 2004), and five Internet-downloadable books (Inclusional Nature and Natural Inclusion, 2006; Natural Communion and From Emptiness to Openness, 2008; Limitless Pool, 2009). A new book, NaturesScope – Unlocking Our Natural Empathy and Creativity, is currently in press with O Books.

He has contributed to a variety of science- and art-based TV and radio broadcasts and presented many seminars and conference papers as well as co-convening several international conferences and symposia. The latter include a pioneering Science-Art event, ‘The Language of Water’, which, in 2001, resulted in an acclaimed BBC Radio 4 series, ‘Water Story’, and in 2006 and 2007 ‘Unhooked Thinking I and II', two landmark conferences changing our perceptions of addiction.

He was President of the British Mycological Society in 1998 and has been a BP Venture Research Fellow and a Miller Visiting Research Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Further information and downloadable publications can be found at www.inclusionality.org, www.inclusional-research.org and http://people.bath.ac.uk/bssadmr.