Board Members
President: Andrea Pieroni
Associate Professor, University of Gastronomic Sciences, Bra, Italy
Andrea Pieroni is an Italo-German ethnobotanist and Associate Professor at
the first worldwide University of Gastronomic Sciences located in
Pollenzo/Bra, Northern Italy.
He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine.
His research focuses on food/gastronomic and medical ethnobotany of ethnic
minorities in the Mediterranean and in the Balkan regions and on the
ethnobiology of migrant communities in Europe.
President-Elect: Lisa Price
I grew up in the USA and received my PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of Oregon. I have spent the last 15 years living and working in first the Philippines at the International Rice Research Institute and then at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. My research spans 10 countries on 5 continents. I have conducted extensive research throughout SE Asia on wild food plants, rice food systems and gender. More recently, I have been engaged in studying the impact of change on agro-biodiversity and traditional food knowledge, particularly HIV/AIDS in Africa. Lisa's CV is available for review.
Secretary: Rainer Bussmann
Director of the William L. Brown Center (WLBC) at Missouri Botanical Garden
Rainer Bussmann is currently Director of the William L. Brown Center (WLBC) at Missouri Botanical Garden. Under Rainer’s direction, WLBC is shifting its focus away from western style discovery programs towards interdisciplinary research in Ethnobiology, giving special emphasis to the interests and needs of Indigenous and local communities. Examples include the establishment of the Sacred Seed program to preserve traditional knowledge directly in the communities where it is held, and the New American Indian Ethnobotany Program, which explicitly declines large scale industry funding. Read more about Rainer on his webpage.
Treasurer: Ina Vandebroek
Research Associate, Institute of Economic Botany, The New York Botanical Garden
Ina Vandebroek is a Belgian ethnobotanist based in New York City. She conducts research on the intersection of ethnobotany, medical anthropology, biocultural diversity, and community health. Her current research focuses on the dynamics of medicinal plant knowledge and use by immigrants from the Dominican Republic in New York City. She is also involved in cultural competency training of medical students and residents to help establish a better dialogue between physicians and their minority patients. She has been working in the Andes and Amazon regions of Bolivia since 1999 in collaboration with local universities and traditional healers. Her current project in Bolivia aims at improving health care in indigenous communities of Yuracaré and Trinitario people in the Bolivian Amazon through workshops with physicians and traditional healers on integrative health care and capacity building in traditional medicine.
Regional Representatives:
Africa: Zerihun Woldu
Bio coming soon.
Central and South Americas and the Caribbean: Sarah-Lan Mathez-Stiefel
Executive Director, A Rocha Peru, Lima, Peru; Research Scientist, Centre for Development and Environment, University of Berne, Switzerland
Sarah-Lan Mathez 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 (www.cde.unibe.ch) 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 (www.arocha.org). 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
Photo and bio coming soon.
Global Coalition Director: Alejandro Argumedo
Photo and bio coming soon.
Chair of the Darrell Posey Fellowship Program: Sarah Laird
In the field in Cameroon, New York, USA
Sarah Laird is a respected independent ethnoecologist who works closely with People and Plants International (PPI), particularly in Cameroon. PPI is a non-profit organization of ethnoecologists devoted to conservation and the sustainable use of plant resources around the world. By working together with local groups in collaborative partnerships, PPI develops sustainable local solutions to improve the interface between human cultures and natural environments. Through the mentoring and education of future natural scientists in project areas, PPI hopes to see a new generation of practitioners who practice conservation that works for local people whose survival depends on the wise use of their resources. Sarah, like many members of the board, was inspired in he work with the International Society of Ethnobiology by her friendship with colleague Darrell Posey. She is the founder and administrator of the Darrell A. Posey Fellowship Program, and has been instrumental in its development.
ISE Ethics Committee Chair: Kelly Bannister
Director, POLIS Project on Ecological Governance, Faculty of Law and School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, Canada
Kelly Bannister is Director of the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance (www.polisproject.org) 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.
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.