Stephen C. Sillett is a scientist who studies the ecology of tall trees and the forests they create. He currently holds the Kenneth L. Fisher Chair in Redwood Forest Ecology and is a Professor in the Department of Forestry and Wildland Resources at Humboldt State University (HSU). He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in botany and forestry at HSU since 1996.

Sillett was raised in Pennsylvania and moved to Oregon in 1986 to attend Reed College, where he studied lichens in the canopy of an old-growth Douglas-fir forest. After graduating in 1989, he attended University of Florida, where he studied bryophytes inhabiting crowns of emergent strangler figs in a Costa Rican cloud forest. Sillett resumed his study of Douglas fir forest canopies in 1991 and earned a Ph.D. in Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University in 1995.

Silletts current research focuses on the five tallest tree species. In addition to dozens of academic publications, Silletts work has been featured in books, magazines, film, television, radio, and on the Internet.

National geographic, Scientists