It’s almost as if Andrés Ruzo had bottled some geothermal energy for himself. During his convocation address in the Olcott Center on Monday, April 14, he didn’t stand still, walking about, jumping down from the steps of the stage, running up the steps to the audience.  

Mr. Ruzo is a geothermal scientist, conservationist, educator, and storyteller known for his work on Peru’s Boiling River of the Amazon. He was the first geoscientist to receive a shamanic blessing to study the site and later founded the Boiling River Project, an international nonprofit focused on protecting the river and promoting responsible geothermal use worldwide. On Monday, he was the guest speaker at the Earth Month convocation and visited classes Monday and Tuesday.  

In the question-and-answer session following his presentation, he was asked about extremophiles, which he had mentioned in his talk. Extremophiles are organisms that are tolerant to environmental extremes and have applications in biotechnology, which is the use of biology to develop new products that can improve human health. 

Parts of the Boiling River in Peru can reach 200 degrees Fahrenheit. There are no known volcanoes, so the theory is the heat comes from deep down.  

“It’s thought that a lot of the best biotech is coming from and will continue to come from extremophiles,” Mr. Ruzo said. “We think the Boiling River is a unique window into the life in the deep subsurface. We've been getting reports from other groups of life at 300 degrees, nine kilometers down, which is insane. We understand life on the surface, walking around, flapping around, swimming around. But what does life look like deep in the earth? … There is still so much that we are waiting to discover.”  

Mr. Ruzo also talked about the deforestation of the Amazon and said in tropical regions throughout the world we are losing the equivalent of 30 soccer fields of forest every single minute. “That is not sustainable,” he said. “That is dangerous in a million ways ... environmental problems lead to human problems.” 

Mr. Ruzo’s excitement about his work is contagious. He is an Explorers Club EC50 fellow, TED main stage speaker, TEDBook author, and National Geographic explorer and host. He has received various honors, awards, and recognitions for his work.  

He certainly knows how to get one’s attention, showing a slide where he is on the edge of a cliff above the deadly-hot water of the Boiling River. He joked that his mother was not that pleased with that photo. At one point he talked about all the buzzing, slithering, flying, and crawling life in the Amazon. “I can’t bring you there, but I can bring a little piece here,” he said. He got 14 volunteers from the audience to stand shoulder to shoulder in front of the crowd, and he stretched out the skin of a 20-foot Anaconda in the volunteers’ hands.  

Currently finishing his doctorate in geothermal systems, Mr. Ruzo has stood shoulder to shoulder in the Amazon with many collaborators. He is a scientist, yes, but says saving and exploring and learning more about this part of the world is about connecting people across various disciplines to the work.  

He is Peruvian, and his passion for the Boiling River Project comes from his family. His grandfather first told him about the legend of the Boiling River. There were doubts that the river could exist, so when he first became a geothermal scientist, he set out to find the river. So now he tells its story, and all that it could mean for humanity. In a way, he is boiling over with enthusiasm, curiosity, wonder.