Lynda V. Mapes is a reporter at the Seattle Times, where she specializes in coverage of the environment. Over the course of her career she has won numerous national and regional awards, including the 2019 and 2012 first place international awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest professional science association.

She has written five books, including Elwha, a River Reborn about the largest dam removal project ever in history and the effort to revive a wilderness watershed in Washington’s Olympic National Park, and its once legendary salmon runs. In 2013-14 Lynda was awarded a 9-month Knight fellowship in Science Journalism at MIT. In 2014-15, she was a Bullard Fellow at the Harvard Forest, exploring the human and natural history of a single, 100-year old oak to write Witness Tree, published by the University of Washington Press in 2019. Her forthcoming book on the southern resident orca whales’ struggle to survive will be published by the Mountaineers Books in spring of 2021. In addition to her staff position as lead environment reporter at the Seattle Times, Lynda is an associate of the Harvard Forest of Harvard University, in Petersham, MA. She was recognized by NOAA Fisheries in 2016 with the prestigious Dr. Nancy Foster Habitat Conservation Award for her reporting on fish and habitat. She lives in Seattle.