Dorian Anderson started birding in his backyard in Philadelphia at age seven. His interest grew to include the Delaware Valley and Jersey Shore during his preteen years, and he attended several of Victor Emanuel’s youth birding camps as a teenager. He envisioned himself a life-long birder until his educational rise and coincident alcoholism extinguished his birding desire. With his focus split between science and drinking, his birding passion birding atrophied through twenties, until he got sober at thirty and reconnected with his former obsession.

Despite the aforementioned alcoholism and much coincident drug use, Anderson received his B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Stanford University, did predoctoral research at Harvard University, and earned his Ph.D. in Developmental Genetics and Molecular Cell Biology from New York University. Moving to Boston after getting sober, he spent three years as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Molecular Neuroscience at Massachusetts General Hospital before resigning the academic rat race and undertaking his bicycle Big Year.

Momentum from that life-changing project opened many doors including public speaking and travel writing. Anderson worked in Colombia as a consultant for the National Audubon Society, and he is currently a guide for Tropical Birding. He is an accomplished bird photographer and has just finished his long-awaited memoir, Birding Under the Influence: Cycling across America in Search of Birds and Recovery. You can find his book, "Birding Under the Influence: Cycling Across America in Search of Birds and Recovery," at amazon.com.