New York Times Feature Article: The Mycology Community

Lsat year the New York Times published an article called The Mushroom Hunters Can't Stop Finding Mysterious Fungi, which featured the Sonoma Mycological Society, and several great quotes by Mandie Quark. This article marked a monumental achievement for the mycology community. Our collective work DNA barcoding fungi over the last decade has been recognized by the New York Times!!!

 It’s incredibly RARE for an article to be in PRINT as well as online, but WE DID IT! On June 11th 2024 you could pick up a copy of the New York Times, anywhere in the world, and read about North American mycology!!!

All the high quality photography in this article was done by the absolutely incredible freelance photo journalist, and mycology community ally, Rachel Bujalski. The story goes… Mandie met Rachel at SOMA Camp in January 2023. She sat through her entire 90 min presentation “DNA Sequencing for Mycologists” and was hooked! She then stayed after to take a workshop to learn sequencing for herself, taught by Harte Singer. Later Rachel came by to photograph me and Alan Rockefeller in the garage laboratory. The story was held up in publication for over a year, meanwhile the mycology community kept making progress. By the time SOMA Camp had rolled around again, and Rachel took some more photos. From then on we set out to find the perfect outlet to publish this amazing story. 

This story took some major twists and turns, before it landed in the inbox of a curious NYT editor, who took a chance on us. Then the search for the perfect writer, who would work to understand genomic science, was on! Finally they found Veronique Greenwood who genuinely tried to understand our community, and dive into the science behind our work. Over 18 months in the making, and the result is stunning!

A few days after the papers hit news stands, the NYT Editor who published the story gave us some amazing feedback. He said the comments on the article were all wonderfully positive, which is apparently "very rare these days!"

Special thanks to the Fungal Diversity Survey, Mycota Lab, and Ohio Mushroom DNA Lab, for continuing to do the daily work of DNA sequencing. We are proud of this community for never letting ANYTHING stand in the way of mycology, and our collective scientific legacy!