Researchers

I am a new student in the Desert Botanical Garden (DBG)-Arizona State University (ASU) Plant Biology and Conservation Masters program. My ASU advisor is Dr. Ben Blonder, and I also currently work in the Research, Conservation and Collections Department at the DBG for the Seeds of Success program. I am very interested in economic botany and ethnobotany. For my masters research, I am focusing on food plant biogeography of the Sonoran Desert region. More specifically, I intend to focus on useful plants and the past impacts of native people on biodiversity in the Sonoran Desert. One central question of the research is understanding how local-scale human food use in pre-historic and historic times shape regional distributions of plant biodiversity. I think this will help us understand plant range dynamics into the future too. I am also interested in nutritional analysis of native plants and research into expanding contemporary usage of native plants. A great deal of research has been done on certain plants and groups, and part of my work is in collaboration as well as outreach to cultural groups in the region.