Michael P. Ghiglieri grew up at Lake Tahoe, Nevada as the great-grandson of a Forty-niner, served as a US Army platoon sergeant during the Viet Nam era, then earned his Ph.D. in Ecology in 1979 from the University of California at Davis for his pioneering research on wild chimpanzees in Kiable Forest, Uganda. In addition to teaching university courses in primate behavior and ecology and in human evolution and ecology, he has directed several semesters-overseas centers focusing on sustainable resource management (in Kenya, the Turks & Caicos, Palau, Far North Queensland, and Vancouver Island) and has worked as a wilderness river guide and EMT.
Since 1974 he has run more than 660 commercial whitewater trips and also treks in Ethiopia, Java, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Rwanda, Sumatra, Tanzania, Turkey, and the USA. These include 140+, 2-week rowing or paddling trips through Grand Canyon and more than 43,000 miles of river overall, a few in the Canyon as an NPS ranger, plus several Kilimanjaro ascents.