Peter Donaldson PhD FRGS - Producer, director, co-writer and presenter. Peter is experienced in expedition filmmaking in Nepal, Antarctica, New Zealand and Indonesia. He has a strong science background and runs his own technology-based company.

Peter graduated in Applied Chemistry at the Ballarat School of Mines in Australia before completing a PhD in X-ray Crystallography at the University of Alberta, Canada. In Canada he climbed many peaks in the Canadian Rockies and discovered a love of wild and remote terrains.

Following his PhD he worked with his brother Roger – Producer and Director of “The World’s Fastest Indian” - on two climbing films with Sir Edmund Hillary in New Zealand and Nepal before undertaking a post-doctoral fellowship in chemistry in London. He returned to Australia as a senior research fellow at the Australian National University and during that period participated in the voyage of an 18m yacht, Solo, to mainland Antarctica. Along with Ted Rayment from the ABC they made a one hour documentary “Voyage to the Ice”. Solo was the smallest vessel to reach mainland Antarctica at Cape Adare and was holed by ice during the voyage. The expedition's first landing by sea was made on Sturge Island in the Balleny Group at a spot now named Solo Anchorage.

Peter then joined the major Australian research organisation, CSIRO, and went to Indonesia for three years documenting Indonesian agriculture. In Indonesia he directed the documentary “Duck Farming - an Indonesian Tradition” which won the Bronze Ear award at the Berlin Agricultural Film Festival. The film illustrated the ingenuity and success of duck farmers in widely different regions of Indonesia through low input farming appropriate to their surroundings.

Returning again to Australia Peter became Assistant to the CEO of CSIRO before leaving to establish a high tech laser drilling company. In time he established his own company, Filtration Solutions, designing and consulting in the mining and pulp and paper industries.

Peter has had a long-standing interest in the personalities and issues surrounding the Theory of Evolution as well as climbing and trekking in remote regions. This project combines many of these interests.

Peter has given many talks on Hooker including the Ross Antarctic Expedition at the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge UK and also at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew on the occasion of the centenary of his death in 2011. More recently some of his videos can be found on the the new Joseph Hooker web pages which came online in January 2014.