Dr. John B. Iverson holds a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Florida and is Biology Research Professor at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. Because of his interests in the natural history, ecology, and evolution of iguanas and turtles, he is currently on the steering committees (and founding member) of the IUCN SSC Iguana Specialist Group, and the Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group. He is also a board member of the Turtle Survival Alliance and the Turtle Conservation Fund. 

He has been active in several herp societies, serving as editor and president of the Herpetologists’ League. He has maintained long-term field research sites since 1980 for rock iguanas in the Exumas in The Bahamas, and for turtles at the Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge in western Nebraska since 1981. His hobby is restoring a 76-acre woodlot/cornfield to a mature hardwood forest (now in a conservation easement).