Richard Preston, Ph.D.
Best-selling author of “The Demon in the Freezer,” “The Cobra Event” and “The Hot Zone”

Richard Preston’s success with his two critically and commercially acclaimed books has proven his status as a first rate investigative journalist and gifted storyteller and put him in the forefront of the emerging diseases and biotechnology arenas. He first took the world by storm with The Hot Zone, the international best-seller that introduced the world to the threat of Ebola and other rain forest viruses. Spending 42 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, The Hot Zone caused a frenzy of media coverage and inspired several fictional adaptations (including the hit film Outbreak).

In his second, The Cobra Event, also a bestseller, Preston turned his attention to the very real threat of biological terrorism. Although his tale unfolds as fiction, it is backed by nearly three years of in-depth research at the highest levels of American and international intelligence, including the FBI, the Pentagon, the Centers for Disease Control, intelligence officers in foreign governments and scientists who have been involved in the development and testing of strategic bioweapons.

Preston’s latest work of nonfiction, The Demon in the Freezer, takes us back into the hot zone, delving with unprecedented detail into the government’s response to the anthrax attacks of October 2001--the first major bioterror event in the U.S. and the second largest investigation in FBI history. He takes us into the epicenter of national biodefense, USAMRIID, where scientists are convinced that the next bioterror threat is not anthrax but a genetically modified strain of smallpox, the world’s deadliest disease, that is now vaccine-resistant. With devastating clarity, Preston shows what is at stake for the scientists fighting to stay one step ahead of the new disease, and what it could mean for all of us.

Preston brings the gripping story-behind-the-story to the lecture podium. In addition to delivering a grim account of what biological terrorism is capable of, Preston shares the inside story of how scientists are finding ways of protecting civilian populations against these horrific weapons. His program is a rare opportunity to journey into the depths of biological espionage and military intelligence, where the truth can be far more startling than fiction.

In addition to these three works, Preston’s books include First Light, an award-winning book about astronomy, and American Steel, about the Nucor Corporation’s building of a revolutionary steel mill. He also has written about the mapping of the human genome. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, and all of his books have first been published there. He is currently a fellow at the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University. Preston has won the American Institute Physics Award, the AAAS-Westinghouse Award and the McDermott Award in the Arts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the only non-physician to have received the Champion of Prevention Award from the Centers for Disease Control.

As a result of his work and scientific contributions, an asteroid has been named “Preston.” It is the size of Mount Everest and will someday collide with Mars, causing an explosion visible throughout the solar system.

Preston was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and attended Wellesley High School, where he was a student of Wilbury Crockett, the famous English teacher who had among his students the poets Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. He was graduated summa cum laude from Pomona College in 1977, and received a Ph.D. in English from Princeton University in 1983, where he studied with the author John McPhee.