Jared Diamond is one of America's most celebrated scholars. A professor of Geography and Physiology at the University of California Los Angeles, he is equally renowned for his work in the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology and for his groundbreaking studies of the birds of Papua New Guinea. Author of eight books and numerous academic monographs, Diamond's best-selling the Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee won two science prizes in 1992. His 1997 book, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, won the Pulitzer Prize and has been translated into 36 languages, selling millions of copies around the world. His follow-up book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, was published in December 2004 and quickly became a best-seller. The ease with which Diamond can encapsulate and explain major patterns in human history from such an original perspective has made him a popular draw for lecture audiences and the international media across the globe.