About Randy Olson
Randy Olson is filmmaker who was previously a tenured professor of marine biology at the University of New Hampshire. He received his Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard University, but got so caught up in the use of film and video for telling stories that he eventually changed careers by going to film school at the University of Southern California. He began his film journey with a music video about the sex lives of barnacles that is still popular in college courses. He has since combined his two careers using film to examine controversies in the world of science. For the past 8 years he has run the Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project making television commercials and short films about ocean conservation with such comic actors as Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, and the Groundlings Improv Comedy Theater. In 2006 his feature documentary, “Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus,” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival then aired on Showtime. In 2008 his mockumentary/documentary/reality feature film, “Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy,” premiered at the Outfest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and is now being adapted as a play by the New Suite Theater Group in Chicago to open next February. Last year he synthesized all of his experiences in his book, “Don’t Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style,” (Island Press) which is an effort to show the world of science how much there is to be learned from the world of humanities and the art of storytelling.