An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the World Around Us

In this talk, Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author Ed Yong shares how he became a birder. After becoming burnt out from years of pandemic reporting, Yong turned to birdwatching to help improve his mental health and return to his nature writing beat. Along the way, Yong found a much deeper connection to the natural world. Now, Yong shares with audiences how birdwatching fosters joy, wonder, and connection to the world around you.

Please note that this lecture will take place in the Old Auditorium at UBC. Registration is required. Registration will open in August—please check back then or subscribe to our Green List to stay informed about upcoming events.

This lecture is co-organized with UBC's Faculty of Science and UBC's Michael Smith Laboratories.

Ed Yong is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter whose fascinating presentations on animals and the natural world are infused with humour, joy, wonder, and infectious enthusiasm. His New York Times-bestselling book, An Immense World, is an astounding tour of the radically different ways that animals perceive the world. Yong dives into each animal’s umwelt—their specific “sensory bubble”—with curiosity and awe, exploring how different senses like heat, sound, smell, and echolocation inform how animals interact with their surroundings.

A New York Times bestseller, An Immense World won the Andrew Carnegie Medal, was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award, and was longlisted for the PEN America 2023 Literary Award, as well as appearing on many Best Books of the Year lists. In 2025 the book was a recipient of the Science + Literature award by the National Book Foundation and the Alfred P Sloan Foundation.