Sheldrake holds a PhD in tropical biology from the University of Cambridge. His doctoral and postdoctoral work centered on fungal networks in the Panamanian rainforest. Since finishing his PhD, he has been a researcher at Vrije University in Amsterdam. He also works with the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks and the Fungi Foundation, which seek to facilitate research and education in the field of mycology and mycelium studies. Entangled Life is his first book and reflects his lifelong fascination with all things fungi.

Sheldrake’s father, Rupert Sheldrake, is a public academic and critic of modern scientific methods, which he sees as ruinously dogmatic. Because of his father’s work, Sheldrake was exposed to many influential scientists and writers from a young age, including Terence McKenna, a family friend. Sheldrake’s upbringing gave him extensive exposure to the natural world and a tendency to question longstanding scientific assumptions. In addition to his writing and academic work, Sheldrake is a keen fermenter who sells homemade fermented hot sauce with his brother Cosmo.

Boddy studies microbial life as a professor at Cardiff University in Wales. Several of her experiments about fungal wood decomposition appear in Entangled Life. She has argued that fungi are the most important life form for humans.