John Richard 'Rick' Stepp is an anthropologist and ethnobiologist who currently holds the position of UF Research Foundation Professor at the University of Florida. Stepp was previously the G. P. Wilder Professor of Botany at the University of Hawaii.
John Richard Stepp | |
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Alma mater | University of California, University of Georgia |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Anthropology, Ethnobotany, Ethnoecology |
Institutions | University of Florida |
Doctoral advisor | Brent Berlin |
Website | https://anthro.ufl.edu/2013/09/29/rstepp/ |
His work examines the strong relationship between biological diversity and cultural diversity. [1] Stepp was trained at the Universities of Florida and Georgia under the respective tutelage of Howard T. Odum and Eugene P. Odum. He has also been involved in research on the importance of weeds as medicinal plants for indigenous peoples. [2] [3] [4] He serves as a regional governor for Slow Food USA. He has served as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Ethnobiology from 2005 to 2008 and from 2021 to present, has presided the Society for Economic Botany (2014) and the International Society of Ethnobiology (2018-2020).
Ethnobotany is the study of a region's plants and their practical uses through the traditional knowledge of a local culture and people. An ethnobotanist thus strives to document the local customs involving the practical uses of local flora for many aspects of life, such as plants as medicines, foods, intoxicants and clothing. Richard Evans Schultes, often referred to as the "father of ethnobotany", explained the discipline in this way:
Ethnobotany simply means investigating plants used by primitive societies in various parts of the world.
Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered and used in traditional medicine practices since prehistoric times. Plants synthesize hundreds of chemical compounds for various functions, including defense and protection against insects, fungi, diseases, and herbivorous mammals.
Howard Thomas Odum, usually cited as H. T. Odum, was an American ecologist. He is known for his pioneering work on ecosystem ecology, and for his provocative proposals for additional laws of thermodynamics, informed by his work on general systems theory.
Ethnobiology is the scientific study of the way living things are treated or used by different human cultures. It studies the dynamic relationships between people, biota, and environments, from the distant past to the immediate present.
Overton Brent Berlin is an American anthropologist, most noted for his work with linguist Paul Kay on color, and his ethnobiological research among the Maya of Chiapas, Mexico.
Ethnoecology is the scientific study of how different groups of people living in different locations understand the ecosystems around them, and their relationships with surrounding environments.
Austin R. Mast is a research botanist. Born in 1972, he obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2000. He is currently a professor within the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University (FSU), and has been director of FSU's Robert K. Godfrey Herbarium since August 2003.
Darrell Addison Posey was an American anthropologist and biologist who vitalized the study of traditional knowledge of indigenous and folk populations in Brazil and other countries. He called his approach ethnobiology and combined research with respect for other cultures, especially indigenous intellectual property rights.
William Balée is a professor of anthropology at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Julia Frances McHugh Morton was an American author and botanist. She was research professor of biology, and director of the Morton Collectanea at the University of Miami. She was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 1974. Well known as a lecturer on toxic, edible and otherwise useful plants, she wrote 10 books and 94 scientific papers, and contributed to an additional 12 books and 27 papers.
Isabella Aiona Abbott was an educator, phycologist, and ethnobotanist from Hawaii. The first native Hawaiian woman to receive a PhD in science, she became a leading expert on Pacific marine algae.
Aechmea magdalenae is a flowering plant in the Bromeliaceae family. It is also known as ixtle. This species is native to Central America, southern Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador. The specific epithet magdalenae comes from the place it was discovered, the Rio Magdalenae Valley in Colombia. The long green leaves feature fierce spines and may reach about 2.5 meters tall. In nature, it is found in moist and swampy woods. The flowers are red and give way to edible fruits.
Maurice Mmaduakolam Iwu is a Nigerian professor of pharmacognosy and the chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from June 2005 to April 2010.
Chandra Prakash Kala is an Indian ecologist and professor. His research interests include alpine ecology, conservation biology, indigenous knowledge systems, ethnobotany and medicinal aromatic plants. He is an assistant professor in the faculty area of Ecosystem and Environment Management at the Indian Institute of Forest Management.
Pamela Soltis is an American botanist. She is a distinguished professor at the University of Florida, curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History, principal investigator of the Laboratory of Molecular Systematics and Evolutionary Genetics at the Florida Museum of Natural History, and founding director of the University of Florida Biodiversity Institute.
Gary John Martin is an American anthropologist, ethnobotanist and conservationist, known for his 1995 book Ethnobotany: a methods manual, which has been translated into Bahasa Melayu, Mandarin and Spanish.
Jan Salick is an American botanist who researches the interaction between humans and plants (ethnobotany) and conservation biology. Her specialisms include alpine environments, climate change, indigenous peoples and traditional knowledge. She is a past-president of the Society for Economic Botany and holds their Distinguished Economic Botanist award. She is also Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and received the Fairchild Medal for Plant Exploration. In 2019 she retired as Senior Curator of Ethnobotany at the Missouri Botanical Garden, and now has emerita status.
Ina Vandebroek is an ethnobotanist working in the areas of floristics, ethnobotany and community health. Since 2005, she has worked at the New York Botanical Garden in the Institute of Economic Botany. She has worked on ethnobotanical projects in North America, the Caribbean, and South America.
John Cameron Semple is a botanist, cytotaxonomist, professor emeritus, and adjunct professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. He was born in Boston and earned a degree of Bachelor of Science in 1969 from Tufts University, followed in 1971 and 1972 by Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Washington University in St. Louis. Semple is known for his work with members of the tribe Astereae, particularly goldenrods, American asters, and goldenasters, and he maintains the University of Waterloo Astereae Lab website. Semple's wife is Brenda, and in 2013, he named a newly discovered goldenrod species Solidago brendiae in honor of her.
Rainer W. Bussmann is a German botanist and vegetation ecologist, specializing in ethnobotany and ethnobiology, wild food plants, wild crop relatives, climate change, gastronomic botany and preservation of traditional knowledge in the Andes, the Caucasus and the Himalayas. He has worked at the University of Bayreuth, University of Hawaii, University of Texas, the Missouri Botanical Garden, Ilia State University and the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe; he has founded several international non-governmental organizations, including Nature and Culture International, Saving Knowledge, and Ethnomont.