Alan Rayner is a British

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 biologist

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

 and educator.

Career

Rayner obtained BA

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 and PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 degrees in Natural Sciences at King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge

King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

, and was a reader

Reader (academic rank)

The title of Reader in the United Kingdom and some universities in the Commonwealth nations like Australia and New Zealand denotes an appointment for a senior academic with a distinguished international reputation in research or scholarship...

 in biology at the University of Bath

University of Bath

The University of Bath is a campus university located in Bath, United Kingdom. It received its Royal Charter in 1966....

 from 1985 to 2011. Rayner has published over 160 academic papers, articles and book chapters seven academic texts in the field of biology, and was president of the British Mycological Society

British Mycological Society

The British Mycological Society is a learned society established in 1896 to promote the study of fungi.-Formation:The Society was formed based on the efforts of two local societies, the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club of Hereford and the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union. The curator of the Hereford...

 in 1998. He has been a BP Venture Research Fellow and a Miller Visiting Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

. Be became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts

Royal Society of Arts

The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce is a British multi-disciplinary institution, based in London. The name Royal Society of Arts is frequently used for brevity...

 in 2010.

In 2001, Rayner hosted "The Language of Water", an event combining scientific and artistic material that led to the BBC Radio 4 series Water Story. In 2006 and 2007, he hosted "Unhooked Thinking" part I and II, which examined various aspects of addiction.

Since 2001, Rayner has been actively involved in developing his concept of "natural inclusionality", a philosophical approach to sustainability

Sustainability

Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...

.