University of Illinois at Chicago Office of Public Affairs (MC 288)
601 S. Morgan St., Chicago, IL 60607-7113, (312) 996-3456, www.uic.edu/depts/paff

September 28, 2001	Contact: Bill Burton (312) 996-2269; burton@uic.edu
	Joseph Peterson (312) 413-0439; joepete@uic.edu

RAINFOREST ECOLOGY AUTHOR TO SPEAK AT UIC

William Allen, science writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and author of "Green Phoenix: Restoring the Tropical Forests of Guanacaste, Costa Rica," will discuss his book about a heroic rainforest restoration project in a lecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago on Oct. 2 at 12:30 p.m. in UIC's Student Services Building, 1200 W. Harrison St., Conference Room C.

Allen's book, published this year by Oxford University Press, tells the story of the people, politics and ecology behind the world's first large-scale attempt to restore a tropical forest from its tattered remnants - an effort the author calls "perhaps the most visionary environmental success of the late 20th century."

His lecture, entitled "Writing Green Phoenix: A 15-year Journey in Science, History and Literary Journalism" is part of a series for the Scholarship Association for UIC and is co-sponsored by UIC's Green Campus Council, the department of communication, the department of earth and environmental sciences, and the Institute of Environmental Science and Policy. The lecture is free and open to the public. It will be preceded by a reception at noon.

Since 1989, Allen has covered science, the environment and medicine for the Post-Dispatch, writing news, features, analysis, book reviews and investigative series. He was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996. He previously worked at the City News Bureau of Chicago, United Press International, Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The Scholarship Association for UIC is a charitable educational and public service organization of volunteers who are faculty, staff, retirees and friends of the university. More information about the Scholarship Association for UIC is available online.

UIC's Green Campus Council promotes an environmentally sustainable campus with regard to facilities, grounds, infrastructure and operations through collaboration between campus operations and university academic and research units.

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