Current ISE Board
| President | Secretary | Regional Representatives | Fellowship Program | Student Representatives |
| Vice President | Treasurer | Global Coalition | Ethics Program | Congress Organizers |
President: Dave Stephenson
Dave is both a lawyer (J.D., U. of Denver College of Law 1984) and an applied sociocultural anthropologist (Ph.D., U. of Colorado 1982; M.A. 1975). He received his undergraduate education at Dartmouth College (A.B. 1972).
Dave is licensed to practice law in Colorado state and federal courts and the Federal Court of Claims, and he has practiced in federal courts and tribal courts throughout the United States. He has been consistently accorded the highest possible rating for legal ability and ethical conduct, AV Preeminent, by the most reputable lawyer rating organization in North America, Martindale-Hubbell. His peers in the Colorado bar have named him a Colorado SuperLawyer. He has regularly spoken to and contributed to publications for diverse audiences throughout the world regarding emerging legal and ethical issues arising from the nexus of international human rights law, Indigenous peoples’ intellectual property rights, and the preservation of indigenous ecosystems.
Dave has over 40 years of diverse public and private sector experience in cross-cultural socioeconomic analysis. He has testified internationally as an expert on intellectual property law. He was a co-founder and Chair of the Rocky Mountain Human Rights Law Group. He has either served on the Board of or as an officer of several international organizations, including recently serving on the Advisory Board for the University of Colorado’s Center for Global Health, and he is currently serving on the Advisory Board of IPinCH, a British Columbia-based organization dedicated to protecting the intellectual property and cultural heritage rights of indigenous peoples. Dave has been active in the International Society of Ethnobiology (ISE) since 1996, was actively involved in drafting its Code of Ethics, and he has previously served as Secretary for the ISE. He currently is on the ISE’s Council of Elders. Dave is based in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, USA.
Dave joined the ISE Board as interim President in 2011.
Vice President: Jack Miller
Jack is currently a faculty member of the Faculty of Human, Social, and Educational Development at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. He teaches in the Bachelor of Education and Master of Education programs, is an elected member of Senate, and is currently with local Aboriginal language teachers on a research project to develop a means of assessing Indigenous language proficiency in Kindergarten and Grade 1 students in a Secwepemc language Immersion school. Jack recently completed a term as the Dean of the School of Education and the Acting Dean of the School of Social Work and Human Service at TRU. Prior to these appointments, he was Chair of the Bachelor of Education program. Jack is an elected member of the TRU Senate, the Budget Committee of Senate, the Academic Planning and Priorities Committee, and the Aboriginal Advisory Committee of Senate. Jack is also a member of the Council of the British Columbia College of Teachers.
Jack was awarded a Doctorate in Educational Leadership and Policy from the University of British Columbia in 2004. The title of his doctoral thesis is “Assessing First Nations Language Proficiency”, and he continues to collaborate with local First Nations language teachers and community members on research dealing with the assessment of First Nations language proficiency. Jack is currently the coach of the TRU Cross-country Running Team and is an elite Masters competitor in track, road racing, and cross-country running. He has completed 54 marathons to date and plans to keep running and competing for many years to come. Jack first joined the ISE in 2006 (Thailand) when he attended the conference for the first time with his wife Verna, herself a previous member of the ISE Board. At the 2006 conference, Jack also participated in the pre-conference workshop that revised the ISE Code of Ethics. Jack attended the 2008 conference in Cusco, Peru, and the 2010 conference at Tofino, BC.
Jack joined the ISE Board as interim Vice President in 2011.
Secretary: Leslie Main Johnson
Leslie Main Johnson is an ethnobiologist and ethnoecologist who works primarily with northern Indigenous people in Canada. She is Associate Professor in the Centre for Work and Community Studies and the Centre for Integrated Studies at Athabasca University, a distance learning university, where she teaches ethnobiology and ethnography. Her research interests include ethnoecology, traditional knowledge, ethnobiology, subsistence, and concepts of health and healing among northwestern Canadian First Nations. Leslie lived in northwestern British Columbia in the territory of the Gitksan for 12 years before returning to graduate school in the 1990s, where she earned her MA and PhD at the University of Alberta. She recently published two books on ethnoecology and landscape, one co-edited with Eugene Hunn and has published a number of articles on ethnoecology and ethnobiology. Leslie joined the ISE in 2000 and has attended four Congresses (2000, 2004, 2008, and 2010). She served as ISE Secretary from 2008-2010, and initiated the ISE Newsletter (now in its third year), which she edits. Leslie brings her recent experiences on, and understanding of, the ISE Board as she re-joins as the Interim Secretary.
Leslie re-joined the ISE Board as interim Secretary in 2011.
Treasurer: Rajindra Puri
Rajindra Puri is an ethnobiologist and anthropologist who works primarily with indigenous people in SE Asia. He is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Anthropology and the Managing Director of the Centre for Biocultural Diversity at the University of Kent. He convenes the Erasmus Intensive Programme, Biocultural Diversity: Concepts and Interdisciplinary Methods, a two week intensive course for postgraduate students from a consortia of 10 European universities. He and his students are currently working on local adaptation to climatic variability in Borneo and Europe. He is also a co-investigator on the ESPA funded project Human Adaptation to Biodiversity Change, and a scientific advisor to the Global Diversity Foundation.
Raj joined the ISE Board as interim Treasurer in 2011.
Regional Representatives:
Africa: Zerihun Woldu
Professor of Plant Ecology at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia.
Central and South Americas and the Caribbean: Sarah-Lan Mathez-Stiefel
Sarah-Lan Mathez is the Executive Director at A Rocha in Peru, Lima, Peru and a Research Scientist at the Centre for Development and Environment, University of Berne, Switzerland. She is a Swiss anthropologist and ethnobiologist with extensive working experience in Latin America as well as Eastern and Southern Africa. She is based with her family in Lima, Peru, since 2006. She works at the Centre for Development and Environment of the University of Berne, Switzerland, within the backstopping mandate of the BioAndes Program, an initiative that aims at the conservation of biocultural diversity in Andean regions of Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. She is also the Executive Director of A Rocha Peru, a Peruvian Christian nature conservation organization part of the global family of A Rocha International. Her professional interests focus on biocultural diversity, sustainable development and natural resource management, traditional ecological knowledge, and social learning processes. She is currently concluding her PhD research on the transformations of traditional medicinal knowledge in the Andes.
North Americas: Alain Cuerrier
Alain Cuerrier is an ethnobotanist and plant taxonomist involved primarily with the First Nations of Eastern Canada. He hold a research position at the Montreal Botanical Garden and Plant Biology Research Institute (University of Montreal). He is a member of the Traditional Aboriginal Antidiabetic Medicines (TAAM). His works encompass antidiabetic traditional medicines, impact assessment of harvesting medicinal plants, perception of climate change by Inuit people. Earlier works have pertained to their traditional medicine (TM) and botanical knowledge as well as their perception of Nature. Alain has been involved with the Access and Benefit Sharing policies within Canada. He is also board member of the Natural Health Product Research Society of Canada. He is helping First Nations and their TM to be recognised.
Asia: Subramanyam Ragupathy
Subramanyam Ragupathy works on the Aboriginal Repository of Knowledge (ARK), which is a collection of ethnobotanical specimens and their associated traditional knowledge in different cultures including aboriginal classification systems for plants. His research in ethnobotany genomics explores the variation in genomic sequences from many species in the context of both scientific and aboriginal classifications. He has recently discovered a Linnaean binomial (Cardiospermum halicacabum L.) recognized as three ethnotaxa by the Irulas’ classification; which is supported by three distinct DNA barcodes. Some of Ragu’s research has developed a theoretical framework to test consensus (reliability/replicability) of TK, which he has tested within several ancient cultures in India. Currently he is developing the concept of ‘assemblage’ – a coming together of different ways of knowing and valorising species variation – this research seeks to add value to both aboriginal knowledge and highly techno-scientific DNA based approaches to understanding diversity as they work together to potentially create new knowledge in dialogue. Read more about Ragu on his webpage.
Europe: Gisella Cruz García
Gisella Cruz García is a Peruvian ethnoecologist. She is PhD candidate of both Social Sciences and Plant Sciences departments at Wageningen University and Research Centre, The Netherlands. Her field work, carried out in cooperation with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI, Philippines), is focused on Isaan biodiversity and conservation of wild food plants in rice landscapes in Northeast Thailand. In 2007 she was awarded the prestigious UNESCO – L’ORÉAL For Young Women in Sciences fellowship.
Oceania and Pacific Islands: Bob Gosford
For more than twenty years Bob Gosford has been fascinated by the relationships between Australian Aboriginal people and the more than 780 species of birds found on the Australian continent. He is currently working on a book examining Australian Aboriginal bird knowledge. He has been an ISE member since 2006 and is a regular contributor to – and organiser of – ethnoornithology symposia and conference sessions.
Global Coalition Director: Alejandro Argumedo
Alejandro Argumedo is a Quechuan agronomist from Peru actively working for the recognition of Indigenous peoples’ rights. He is the Director of the Quechua-Aymara Association for Sustainable Livelihoods (ANDES) based in Cusco, Peru, an action-research and advocacy indigenous organization focusing on territorial approaches to sustainable development. He is also the founder of the Indigenous Peoples Biodiversity Network, a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas, and current coordinator of the Indigenous Peoples’ Biocultural Assessment on Climate Change (IPCCA).
Global Coalition Co-Director: Krystyna Swiderska
Krystyna Swiderska is a senior researcher in the Agroecology and Food Sovereignty Team at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). She works primarily on the protection of indigenous peoples’ knowledge, genetic resources, biocultural heritage and traditional resource rights. She coordinates multi-country action-research processes with indigenous communities, working with local research and indigenous partners, and links the findings to international policy processes, including the CBD, FAO, WIPO and UNFCCC. From 2004-2009, Krystyna coordinated a project on “Protecting community rights over traditional knowledge: Implications of customary laws and practices” involving indigenous communities in Peru, Panama, China, India and Kenya. This project, co-coordinated with Asociacion ANDES Peru, developed the concept of collective biocultural heritage and tools for its protection (see www.bioculturalheritage.org). Krystyna is now working with ANDES and partners in China, India and Kenya on a 5-year programme of action research with indigenous communities, called “Smallholder Innovation for Resilience”, which seeks to strengthen indigenous knowledge, crops, practices and biocultural systems for adaptation to climate change, and develop tools for this purpose (eg. biocultural protocols, registers and Participatory Plant Breeding) .
Darrell Posey Fellowship Program Chair: Sarah Laird
Sarah Laird, Chair of ISE Fellowship Program, is co-director of People and Plants International (PPI). In part, Sarah’s work has focused on ethics and equity associated with ethnobiological research and the commercial use of traditional knowledge and genetic resources, including ‘access and benefit sharing’ policies under the Convention on Biological Diversity. She also works on trade and governance issues associated with non-timber forest products (NTFPs), and in 2010 co-edited the book Wild Product Governance: finding policies that work for non-timber forest products. Sarah has worked for many years in Cameroon, including on the trade of medicinal plants and other non-timber forest products, certification and retention of biodiversity in cocoa farms, policies to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity, and ethnobiological research around Mt Cameroon with Bakweri and other groups living in the area. Sarah, like many members of the ISE Board, was inspired to work with the International Society of Ethnobiology by her friendship with Darrell Posey. She is a founder and is currently chair of the Darrell A. Posey Fellowship Program.
Darrell Posey Fellowship Program Co-Chair: Mary Stockdale
Mary Stockdale is an adjunct professor in the Department of Community, Culture and Global Studies at University of British Columbia, Okanagan branch (UBCO), where she teaches courses and engages in research related to community resilience, sustainability and natural resource management. Internationally, she has spent the past 20 years working in Southeast Asia (mainly Indonesia and the Philippines) on community-based forest management, particularly on issues related to non-timber forest products (NTFP) management. Most of her work in the past 10 years has been done in collaboration with the NTFP-Exchange Programme for South and Southeast Asia, a regional network of community organizations (mostly indigenous), local NGOS, and others, with a mission of promoting sustainable forest management and sustainable livelihoods for forest-dwelling communities. She is also an activist in her own community, working on resilience and sustainability initiatives. While based at the University of Oxford, Mary was a friend of Darrell Posey’s, and is pleased to carry on his legacy by acting as Co-Chair of the Darrell Posey Fellowship Selection Committee.
ISE Ethics Committee Chair: Kelly Bannister
Kelly Bannister is Director of the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance and an adjunct professor in the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria (Victoria, B.C., Canada). She has B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Microbiology/Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Ethnobotany/Medicinal Plant Chemistry. She is actively involved in both ethnobotanical field research and policy analysis, and mainly works with First Nations and treaty groups in British Columbia. Her current focus is on ethical and legal issues in research involving biodiversity, Indigenous knowledge and cultural heritage, and the potential of moral tools and local governance mechanisms (e.g., codes of ethics, community research protocols) to address power relations and facilitate equitable research practices. She is involved as a Canadian expert on developing Access and Benefit Sharing policy and legislation under the Convention of Biological Diversity. She is also involved in institutional policy development in support of collaborative research between universities, Aboriginal communities, and community non-profit organizations.
ISE Ethics Committee C0-Chair: Gleb Raygorodetsky
Born and raised in a coastal village in Kamchatka, Russia, Gleb is a conservation biologist with expertise in resource co-management and traditional knowledge systems. His work has taken him from the Brazilian Amazon to the Canadian Beaufort Sea, to the Russian Altai Mountains. He has lived and worked with the Evèn reindeer herders, the Aleut fur seal hunters, the Caboclos pirarucu fishermen, and the Gwich’in caribou hunters. For his Ph.D. (Columbia University, 2006), he looked at the resilience of social-ecological systems after the collapse of the Soviet-Union in the Russian Far East, by researching furbearer use and conservation in Kamchatka. Between 2006-2010 he led the development of a new global grant-making strategy for the Christensen Foundation on biocultural issues and since then has continued to work in the field of biocultural diversity with a focus on participatory conservation, climate change adaptation and communication. He currently consults and collaborates with multilateral organizations such as the UNDP, UNESCO and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He has written and contributed to books, scientific and popular articles on indigenous issues and conservation in both English and Russian.
Student Representative: Hannes Dempewolf
Hannes Dempewolf is a graduate student at the Biodiversity Research Centre and Botany Department of the University of British Columbia. Originally from south-western Germany, he has studied in Scotland and Canada and been involved in research projects in Peru, the Caribbean, southern Kenya and Ethiopia. His research interests focus on the evolution, maintenance and conservation of agro-biodiversity, the importance of such diversity for farming communities and the role it can play for sustainable development and food security. His PhD work concentrates on the oil-seed crop Noug (Guizotia abyssinica) a ‘neglected and underutilized species’ from the Horn of Africa. Hannes also has an interest in the interface of science & policy as well as ethical issues in agro-biodiversity research.
Student Representative: Nemer E. Narchi
Nemer E. Narchi an ethnobiologist, is currently working his doctoral degree in Environmental and Ecological Anthropology at the University of Georgia. He holds a bachelors’ degree in Oceanography and a graduate degree in Marine Resource Management, both from Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC), in Mexico. Nemer has conducted ethnobiological research in Sonora and Oaxaca in Mexico, and the Bolivian Amazon. He is a fellow for the Mexican Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) and the Mexican Bureau for Public Education (DGRI-SEP). His current research, carried out along the shores of Sonora, Mexico, focuses on learning Comcáac medicine and comparing similarities and differences between Comcáac knowledge of plants and marine organisms. His professional interests include traditional environmental knowledge, ethnothalassology, and how identity is affected by market integration and alienation.
2012 ICE Organizer: Edmond Dounias
Edmond Dounias works for IRD (French public Research Institute for Development). His research activities focus on the biocultural interactions between forest dwellers and tropical forests in a context of drastic change, with a particular interest in hunting and gathering nomadic societies (Africa, South-East Asia). He has a significant experience in anthropology of food, including quantitative food consumption surveys and biomedical monitoring. He also explores the resilience of micro-level socio-ecological systems, the environmental vulnerability and local adaptive strategies of forest dwellers in response to external drivers of change, including climate change. Edmond is the chair of the Organizing Committee for the 13th International Congress of Ethnobiology in May 2012 in Montpellier, France.
2010 ISE Congress Organizer: Josie Osborne
Josie Osborne is a marine biologist and environmental educator born and raised in coastal British Columbia, Canada and based in Tofino, a community in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, for over ten years. After completing a Masters degree in resource and environmental management at Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, BC, Canada) she moved to Tofino to work as a fisheries biologist for the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations. Her experiences living in a small coastal community and working closely with the Nuu-chah-nulth people introduced her to ethnozoology, and have helped shape her professional career and volunteer work. Her current interests focus on the role of indigenous cultures in ecological restoration, particular in sea otter recovery. Josie is also an active environmental educator, working for the Tofino Botanical Gardens Foundation and the Raincoast Education Society in Tofino to help increase awareness about the natural and cultural environments of Clayoquot Sound and inspire people to take action to conserve and protect them. Josie is the chair of the Organizing Committee for the 12th International Congress of Ethnobiology in May 2010 in Tofino, Canada.
