Current Board of Directors

E.N. (Gene) Anderson
President (March 2007–March 2009)

Gene is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside and an Affiliate Professor, in the Department of Anthropology, University of Washington (Seattle). He has conducted ethnobiological research throughout the world, including work with Chinese fishermen in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, on the Northwest Coast studying First Nations traditional culture and ecology, and with theYucatec Maya of Quintana Roo. His particular interests include ethnobiology, political ecology, cultural ecology, medical anthropology, and anthropology of food and nutrition. [Link to detailed biography]

Dana Lepofsky
President Elect/Vice-President
(March 2007–March 2009)

Dana is an Associate Professor in the Department of Archaeology at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia. She is a paleoethnobotanist who is particularly interested in the social and ecological impacts of human interactions with their environment, but likes anything to do with the ancient use of plants. Dana has conducted research in Oceania and the Pacific Northwest of North America. Her current research program in British Columbia brings together researchers from several disciplines and from academic and First Nations communities to investigate various issues related to the development of complex hunter-gatherers. She examines these issues at varying spatial scales, from the household to the region. Dana is committed to making archaeological work more accessible to the public and all her projects have a large outreach component. [Link to detailed biography]

Sandra Peacock
Secretary (March 2008–March 2011)

Sandra is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia - Okanagan where she teaches courses in ethnobotany, archaeology and paleoethnobotany. Over the last 15 years, she has worked collaboratively with numerous First Nations communities in Alberta and British Columbia documenting traditional ecological knowledge for a variety of purposes. Her research explores the ethnobotanical and archaeological evidence for the use and management of plant resources by Native peoples of the Canadian Plateau and the Northwestern Plains, with a focus on issues of plant resource intensification. [Link to detailed biography]

Steve Wolverton
Treasurer (March 2008–March 2011)

Steve is an environmental scientist and archaeologist specializing in paleozoology of North America during the Holocene. He is assistant professor in environmental archaeology and conservation paleozoology at the University of North Texas, Department of Geography. His interests span ecology, paleoecology of North America, environmental archaeology, paleozoology, and conservation biology. His recent research focuses on white-tailed deer and black bear biology and the use of datasets from zooarchaeology and paleontology to address modern issues in conservation biology. In addition, Steve has interests in analytical chemistry and has on-going research in artifact residue analysis including fatty-acid and protein residues from pottery. [Link to detailed biography]

Rainer Bussmann
Board Member (March 2008–March 2011)

Rainer is head of William L. Brown Center (WLBC) at Missouri Botanical Garden, and Curator of Economic Botany. Originally a vegetation ecologist, he focuses now on the interface between plant use, conservation and resource management. He held university appointments as Assistant Professor at University of Bayreuth (Germany), as Associate Professor and Scientific Director of Lyon Arboretum at University of Hawaii, and as Research Fellow at University of Texas, Austin, and has taught a wide variety of classes in the US, Germany, Africa and Latin America, using English, German, and Spanish as teaching languages. His research interests focus on medicinal plants, neglected crops, wild crop relatives and traditional crop varieties, Seed and Germination Ecology, Natural Resource Management, International law in relation to Intellectual Property Rights, Ecology and Environment, Plant Ecology and Regeneration Ecology, with current projects in Peru, Ecuador, Iran, India, Nepal and Kenya.

Shawna Morton Cain
Board Member (March 2007–March 2010)

Shawna is a graduate student at the University of Arkansas and an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. A fourth generation Cherokee residing within the Old Flint District of the Cherokee Nation since removal, Shawna is a Native educator, cultural resource liaison, and a traditional artisan and basket weaver. In 2006, Shawna was honored by her people as a Cherokee Living Treasure. An advocate of ecological conservation, Shawna is engaged in community efforts to advance indigenous perspectives through a balance of Native American and Western scholarship. Shawna’s involvement with rural Cherokee cultural life and her familiarity with traditional practices linked to natural resources have provided the basis for her graduate research in ethnohistory and ethnoecology. Presently, Shawna is examining interactions between Cherokee traditions and woodland ecosystems, and the broader impacts of modernization on indigenous peoples and landscapes. Shawna’s research program is funded by grants from the American Philosophical Society and the Environmental Protection Agency.

John Tuxill
Board Member (March 2008–March 2011)

John Tuxill is Assistant Professor with Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies at Western Washington University, where he teaches ethnobotany, applied conservation biology, and environmental studies. His research centers on understanding how small-scale agrarian households manage different aspects of biological diversity—from crop varieties to habitats and landscape patterns. He is particularly interested in how agricultural biodiversity is shaped by social, economic, and ecological changes in farmers’ lives, and the implications of those changes for conservation. John conducts field research on these themes in collaboration with Yucatec Maya communities in central Yucatan, Mexico. Additional contributors to this work include the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute and the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Avanzados-Unidad Merida. John has taught undergraduate and graduate field studies in Yucatan and the Ecuadorian Andes, and has additional research and teaching interests in highland Southern Mexico, southwest China, and the Pacific Northwest.

Rebecca Zarger
Board Member (March 2007–March 2010)

Becky is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of South Florida (USF). She is a cultural anthropologist who conducts research at the interface between ethnobiology and the anthropology of education and childhood. Her primary research explores the ways subsistence knowledge is learned, taught, and transformed in Q’eqchi’ Maya communities in Belize. Recently, Zarger has been working with archaeologists and local organizations in southern Belize to study the ways present-day cultural and “natural” heritage can be integrated into the development of the ancient Maya site of Uxbenka, through gardens and interpretive trails emphasizing ethnobotanical knowledge, past and present. In Tampa, Florida, she is working with other USF faculty on a project to study the pedagogy of garden-based curriculum in primary schools and to build a local network of educators interested in using school gardens as “outdoor classrooms.” [Link to detailed biography]