Michael Beug completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Washington in 1971. After one year teaching at Harvey Mudd College, he spent 32 years at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington where he taught chemistry, environmental studies, mycology, and organic farming. Michael started mushrooming in 1968 and began photographing fungi in 1973. His photographs now have appeared in well over 80 books and articles on mushrooms. In 1974 he joined the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) and the Pacific Northwest Key Council, a mycology service group dedicated to writing macroscopic keys for the identification of fungi. His specialties are the Ascomycota, the genus Ramaria, and all toxic and hallucinogenic mushrooms. He is researching oak-associated fungi of the Columbia River Gorge, especially Cortinarius species. He has discovered nearly 100 new mushroom species from a dozen genera. He is fungi photo editor for the University of British Columbia E-Flora website and supplies mushroom photos to the Burke Museum (University of Washington). His hobbies are organic farming and winemaking. In NAMA, he served on the Education Committee, was chair of the Toxicology Committee, chair of the Editorial Committee, and past editor of the Journal McIlvainea. He won the 2006 NAMA Award for Contributions to Amateur Mycology. He regularly writes about mushrooms in Fungi Magazine, McIlvainea, The Mycophile, and Mushroom: The Journal of Wild Mushrooming. He has over two dozen PowerPoint presentations about mushrooms available through the NAMA Education Committee. With coauthors Alan and Arleen Bessette, he wrote Ascomycete Fungi of North America: A Mushroom Reference Guide, University of Texas Press, 2014. He is a coauthor of MycoMatch, a free downloadable mushroom identification program for Pacific Northwest fungi covering over 4,500 taxa with over 7,000 images by 180 photographers of over 2,500 taxa. He wrote Mushrooms of Cascadia: An Illustrated Key, Fungi Press 2021 (First Edition) and Ten Speed Press 2024 (Second Edition).
