Tyler Volk

Tyler Volk

Author and Professor of Biology at New York University

Tyler Volk is a Science Director of Environmental Studies and Professor of Biology at New York University. He is the author of "Death & Sex" (with co-author Dorion Sagan), "CO2 Rising: The World' Greatest Environmental Challenge," "Gaia's Body: Toward a Physiology of the Earth," and "Metapatterns: Across Space, Time, and Mind." Professor Volk is also lead guitarist for The Amygdaloids, a "heavy mental" band comprised of NYU scientists. He lives in New York.
Close-up split image showing the left half of a human eye and the right half of a purple flower, highlighting the detail and texture of both subjects.
3mins
Biologist Tyler Volk PhD, psychiatrist Bruce Greyson MD, and palliative care physician BJ Miller MD, reveal how confronting mortality can improve the way we live.
Unlikely Collaborators
5mins
The interplay between the dead and the living—the miraculous “webbing of nature in which death becomes life and life becomes death…around and around”—not only stands as the basis of our […]
10mins
Mammals, including humans, have natural lifespans that have remained about the same through each species’ existence. What are these figures, and why do they vary so greatly across species?
6mins
From our tiniest cells performing constant “suicide programs,” to the adaptive measures behind the grand sweep of evolutionary history, death is what truly drives life.
4mins
Humans have developed elaborate rituals, institutions and even theories of immortality to lessen the life-long shock that is knowledge of death. What’s behind this primal urge and how does an […]
2mins
Our atoms are formed from particles with seemingly infinite lifespans, so why do organisms die? The NYU professor explains the biology of death.
27mins
A conversation with the author and professor of biology at New York University.