Thea Chesney is a lifelong Sierra Nevada foothill resident and naturalist. She has had an interest in mushrooms (and plants, and the rest of the natural world) since early childhood, which gradually became an obsession. She holds a B.S. in forestry from UC Berkeley, with an emphasis in botany and natural sciences. During her time at Berkeley, she spent plenty of time working and hanging out in the Berkeley mycology labs and continues to return to campus to provide specimens for and aid in teaching their mushroom ID course. She worked on a mushroom survey crew for the U.S. Forest Service around Mt. Shasta for several seasons, which allowed her to become intimately familiar with the fungal inhabitants and ecology of the area. Since then, she has continued with the Forest Service as a botanist for a long-term California-wide meadow monitoring project. She teaches occasional workshops in mushroom and plant identification, both for work and independently. She has also been involved with the California Rare Fungi Working Group since its inception. Her fieldwork and her own studies of plants and fungi are centered in the Sierra Nevada and other mountains of California, and she is currently working on a field guide to mushrooms of these understudied regions with Noah Siegel and Christian Schwarz.
TOPICS COVERED:
EPISODE RESOURCES:
Ep. 17: Corvidopolis - Art, Nature & The Mysteries of the Mushroom Tarot (feat. Chris Adams)
Ep. 16: Scotland's Wild Food Stories - Pioneering Research on the Culture of Foraging (feat. Leanne Townsend)
Ep. 15: The Art of the Mushroom - Spirituality, Myth and Psychedelia (feat. Michael Campbell)
Ep. 14: Decriminalize CA - Decriminalizing Psilocybin, Protecting Democracy (feat. William Goss)
Ep. 13: Natura Design - Building a Better World with Mushroom Materials (feat. Ashley Granter)
Ep. 12: Wholesun - Empowering the Medicinal Mushroom Industry, Shaping the Future (feat. Jme Bonfiglio)
Ep. 11: Masterclass in Transforming Ecology with Soil Biology & Mycoremediation (feat. Craig Trester)
Ep. 10: Mixing Chemistry & Mycology in the Appalachian Rainforest (feat. Mandie Quark)
Ep. 9: Wild Kingdom - Medicinal Mushrooms, Regenerative Foraging and Spiritual Connection (feat. Neil Thenier)
Ep. 8: Let Wild Mushrooms & Plants be Thy Medicine (feat. Jess Starwood)
Ep. 7: Gnome Life - Wild Mushroom Identification & Exotic Forage Adventures (feat. Tugrul De Luce)
Ep. 6: The Lion King - DIY Mycology & Lions Mane Mushrooms (feat. MycTyson Mushrooms)
Ep. 5: Wild Food Foraging & English Folklore with a Freudian Twist (feat. Fern Freud)
Ep. 4: Johns Hopkins Psychedelic Research - The Promise of Psilocybin Therapy (feat. Ian Geithner)
Ep. 3: Community Mycology & Entheogen Decriminalization in San Francisco (feat. James McConchie)
Ep. 2: FreshCap - Activating Minds & Bodies via Education & Medicinal Mushrooms (feat. Tony Shields)
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