November 4, 2025 6:30 pm
Town Hall Seattle, Livestream (Hybrid)
Pay What You WillRecordedLivestreamOpen CART Captioning
Ed Yong
“It’s easy to think of birding as an escape from reality. Instead, I see it as immersion in the true reality.” – Ed Yong.
After years of intense pandemic reporting left him burnt out, Ed Yong turned to birdwatching. What began as a simple hobby soon rekindled his passion for nature writing, sparked joy and wonder, and deepened his connection to the living world. In this talk, Yong shares how becoming a birder helped him heal, and how engaging with nature can be both restorative and revelatory.
Registration opens September 10, 2025.
About the speaker
Ed Yong
Pulitzer Prize Winner and Author
Ed Yong is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter known for his captivating explorations of animals and the natural world, infused with humor, wonder, and infectious enthusiasm. His New York Times-bestselling book, An Immense World, takes readers on a fascinating journey into the radically different ways animals perceive their surroundings, exploring their unique “sensory bubbles”—or umwelten—through senses like heat, sound, smell, and echolocation.
After years of intense pandemic reporting left him burnt out, Yong found solace in birdwatching, a hobby that rekindled his passion for nature writing and deepened his connection to the environment. Today, he speaks about the restorative power of engaging with the natural world, emphasizing how it can be both healing and enlightening.
A New York Times bestseller, An Immense World won the Andrew Carnegie Medal, was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award, and was longlisted for the PEN America 2023 Literary Award. In 2025, it received the Science + Literature award from the National Book Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. A beautifully illustrated adaptation for young readers is set for release in May 2025.
Yong is also the bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us, a groundbreaking exploration of the intricate relationships between animals and microbes. His science journalism has earned widespread acclaim, including the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Exemplary Reporting on the pandemic, as well as the George Polk Award, the Victor Cohn Prize for medical-science reporting, and the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award. In 2024, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship in recognition of his pioneering work in science writing.
A longtime reporter for The Atlantic, Yong’s work has also appeared in National Geographic, The New Yorker, Wired, Nature, New Scientist, and Scientific American, among others.
Sponsoring Departments: Department of Psychology, Department of Biology, The Burke Museum, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Communication, The Graduate School