Char Farfadet is a current PhD student of Anthropology at Texas A&M University. Their MA degree was also in Anthropology from Texas A&M University, while their BSc degree was in Environmental Biology (with a focus on Plant Biology) and Anthropology at McGill University. They have roots in Texas and grew up in Austin, which has been formative to their interests and study focus. Their current research is dedicated to supporting and empowering the health and overall wellbeing of Indigenous peoples across North America, but with a special soft spot for the Chihuahuan Desert. Char aims to bridge the temporal gaps between the paleoethnobotany and contemporary ethnobotany of Turtle Island, by interbraiding archaeological, historical, ethnographic, botanical, and biochemical disciplines. They seek to collaborate with Indigenous communities in and around the Chihuahuan Desert and abroad, in order to address pressing community health issues and adequate access to healthcare, nutritional inequity, food insecurity, and other factors of marginalization and colonial imposition plaguing these communities today.

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.

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.

Charles Nyarang’o Nyamwamu is a third year PhD student (Plant taxonomy) in University of Eldoret, Kenya. His current study, which involves characterization of Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) cultivars in Kenya, focuses on the morphological, genetic and agronomic traits of various cassava varieties across the country. This research targets to identify suitable cultivars for different regions, enhances breeding programs, improves crop productivity and food security while conserving genetic diversity to address ecological challenges. He has a MSc degree in botany (Plant taxonomy) from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya which assessed the impacts of weed management practices on weed abundance and diversity on farms in Kisii Central Sub County, Western Kenya.

He has published twenty-two (22) papers in different peer referred journals and also one Book Chapter. He is also an active member in community-based activities, having engaged in establishment of a local community library in in Nyamira County, Kenya. He aims at getting engaged effectively in addressing training/teaching, research, technical challenges and with an effort to establish and sustain good performance standards and qualities in life science fraternity more especially in the field of Botany at large.

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.