Guy R. McPherson is the world's leading authority on the topic of abrupt climate change leading to near-term human extinction. He has been featured in several documentary films, as well as an episode of National Geographic Explorer.

Professor McPherson was honored with the Jazz for Peace Honorary Ambassador Award in September 2019. A ceremony was held on 10 October 2020. The four previous honorees since Jazz for Peace was founded in 2002 include United States Congressional Representative Dennis Kucinich, United States consumer advocate Ralph Nader, America’s first Chinese mayor Jean Qian (Oakland, California), and American historian Howard Zinn. Jazz for Peace is an American professional jazz organization with the goal of promoting unity and peace across cultures through the performance of music. The group also seeks to increase arts and music education in schools.

McPherson is Professor Emeritus of conservation biology at the University of Arizona, where he taught and conducted research for twenty award-winning years. His scholarly work has produced more than a dozen books and hundreds of articles.

Born in 1960 in northern Idaho, McPherson grew up in a small logging town. Surrounded by the bounty and beauty of the natural world, he grew up hunting and fishing, and witnessed the final years of the age of economic expansion, along with the final log drive down the Clearwater River.

McPherson received a forestry degree at the University of Idaho, and paid his way through college as a wildland firefighter. He completed his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at Texas Tech University and, following a brief postdoctoral experience at the University of Georgia and a Visiting Assistant Professor position at Texas A&M University, he began his tenure-track experience in Tucson. McPherson was promoted to Full Professor before he turned 40 years of age.

During his tenure in Tucson, McPherson also taught at the University of California in Berkeley, Grinnell College in Iowa, and Southern Utah University. He was the inaugural director of the David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellowship Program, which is administered by the Society for Conservation Biology. His pioneering activities in the classroom and in the field led to opportunities to speak at many colleges and universities, and garnered numerous accolades.

The Professor left active service at the University in 2009. Only 49 years of age when he assumed Emeritus status, McPherson established a homestead in rural, southern New Mexico. After a move to Belize, and then another back to the country of his birth, he continues his prolific writing and public speaking from southern Vermont.