Debbie Viess - Contributing Editor

Debbie Viess, aka "Amanitarita", is a trained biologist, writer and artist who has been seriously obsessed with the study of all things fungi for over fifteen years. She is the Co-founder of the Bay Area Mycological Society (BAMS!), the newest and most dynamic, science-centric mushroom club in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has written about mushrooms extensively both online and in print, and has lectured about mushrooms to mushroom enthusiasts and the general public across the country. She is a frequent source of mushroom information for media of all sorts, including newspapers, radio and television. She belongs to a number of mushroom clubs and societies, including BAMS, FFSC, SOMA, NAMA and the MSA.

In March of 2008 she produced an extensive, illustrated lecture on California Amanitas for the U.C. Berkeley Natural History Museums for a "Science Cafe" venue. She has taught mushroom classes through the California Academy of Sciences, Albany Adult School, the Audubon Society, U.C. Berkeley Botanical Gardens and Pt. Reyes Field Seminars.

She has worked closely on all five Pt. Reyes Mycoblitz forays, helping to set up the program, collect and identify fungi, and helping to produce the most up-to-date Mycoblitz information on the web at the BAMS website. She and her husband David Rust have also produced mini-Fungus Fairs at Pt. Reyes National Seashore for the past two years, free events that help introduce locals and visitors from both near and far to their fungal neighbors.

She is a frequent contributor to the dynamic new photo and information sharing site MushroomObserver.com, and continues to pursue the science of fungi through various forums both local and national, the most recent being a two week stint at Highlands Biological Station in North Carolina. She maintains several notebooks of mushroom illustrations which she uses for both artistic and educational purposes, and her photography is improving, too. ;)