Savannah Anez is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Plant Biology program at Penn State. She is originally from rural Minnesota, and received her BS in Biochemistry from Notre Dame. She is especially fascinated by the complex biochemistry of plants, and how those complexities influence the people who use and interact with them. Currently, Savannah is working with Dr. Joshua Kellogg and Dr. Eric Burkhart as well as a network of citizen volunteers to characterize the specific chemistry, bioactivity, and chemical ecology of ghost pipe (Monotropa uniflora) and to document its traditional folk uses. She hopes to produce scientific results that have been guided by historical and contemporary knowledge and are directly relevant to the community she is drawing from.

Maria Lopez Rojas is a doctoral candidate in the Environmental Dynamics Program at the University of Arkansas. Biocultural heritage, paleoecology, and anthropogenic landscapes are the theoretical and methodological frameworks implemented by Lopez Rojas to research landscape management from 1500 BCE to 1250 CE in Nuevo Corinto archaeological site – a Chibchan settlement inhabited by indigenous people before the arrival of Spanishes. Maria is interested in agroforestry, social change, and human-plant interactions. She is dedicated to strengthening paleoenvironmental studies and creating research resources for training students and scholars in archaeobotanical studies in Costa Rica. She co-produces the podcast LACAP which disseminates archaeological studies conducted by young and senior researchers in Costa Rica. Email: ml072@uark.edu, orcid.org/0000-0001-9375-5151

Nishanth Gurav is a 3^rd year Ph.D. Candidate at the Tropical Botany and Ethnobiology Lab (TRIBE), Faculty of Tropical Agrisciences (FTA), Czech University of Life Sciences Prague. He is from India and completed my M.Sc. in ‘Conservation Futures’ from the University of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology (TDU), Bangalore. He has extensively worked with local communities in creating People’s Biodiversity Registers (PBR) for over 70 villages in the states of Karnataka and Chhattisgarh as a Research Fellow at TDU. His current research investigates sustainable practices and folk taxonomy of wild edible plants used by the Gond tribals in Bastar, India. He is passionate about exploring wild plants, their local names, cultural practices and how these could be relevant in local curriculums and conservation policies. Besides research, he likes to use different mediums of social media to create a global dialogue on ethnobotany and understand local perspectives around it. He believes in using transdisciplinary approaches and creating an inclusive atmosphere in trying to create a sustainable world.

Aoife Kate Pitts is a 4th year PhD candidate in the Integrative Conservation and Anthropology program at the University of Georgia. She is part of the Humans and Environmental Change Lab led by Dr. Don Nelson and the Conservation lab led by Dr. Pete Brosius. She previously received her BA in Anthropology and BS in Conservation Ecology from the University of Alabama. Aoife’s love for plants originated in Ireland’s southeastern coasts and forests, and while on her family’s farm. Her dissertation integrates agroforestry and ethnobotany to explore the interplays between livelihoods, farming, and agrobiodiversity conservation in collaboration with Tikuna communities and their chagras in the Colombian Amazon. Previous work on forestry crews, farms, and greenhouses in the Appalachian and Midwestern regions of the United States has strengthened her commitment to academic research that has practical application and is co-created with local communities. As such, her research aims to center human well-being and find synergies between local livelihood development and biodiversity conservation policies.

A multigenerational Caymanian, Hannah Reid Ford holds a BA in Environmental Studies and Journalism from Emory University and an MSc in Environment, Science & Society from University College London. Hannah is currently pursuing a PhD in Ethnobiology at the University of Kent, exploring the linkages between traditional environmental knowledge and plant awareness. Hannah serves as Senior Policy Advisor for Environment & Resiliency with the Cayman Islands Government Ministry of Sustainability & Climate Resiliency. She has served on the National Trust for the Cayman Islands Council since 2019, first as an elected member and then as a Government-appointed representative. In her spare time, she loves exploring the ‘bush’ of her homeland and sharing her insights on Caymanian traditional ethnobotanical knowledge through her ‘Bush Girl Medicine’ blog and social media pages. In 2021, Hannah helped discover and document two new plant records for the Cayman Islands.

Marco Zanghi is a 2nd year masters student in the Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology program at Columbia University. He is part of the Plants, Cultures, Food, and Climate Lab led by Dr. Alex McAlvay from the Center for Plants, People, and Culture in the New York Botanical Garden. Originally from New York, he received a B.S. in Environmental Management and Protection with a concentration in Wildlife Biology as well as a minor in Indigenous Studies in Natural Resources and the Environment from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Marco is a student representative for International Society of Ethnobiology board. His current research investigates the traditional management of wild leguminous shrubs in milpa systems by Wixárika communities of Western Central Mexico. The work aims to understand and raise awareness about the potential benefits of this understudied stewardship practice and the potential unanticipated agroecological consequences of shifting from traditional milpas to tilled monocultures. He is also passionate about traditional management practices and conservation as they pertain to indigenous foodways. Marco hopes to be a representative for the field of ethnobotany and spread it to more students and others in academia.