UF Center for Latin American Studies
Ecological anthropology, ethnobotany, medical anthropology, visual anthropology
Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Ecuador, Peru, Caribbean
Rick (John Richard) Stepp is UF Research Foundation Professor of Anthropology at the University of Florida. He is a core faculty member of the Tropical Conservation and Development Program and the Land Use and Environmental Change Institute. He is also an affiliate faculty member of the School of Natural Resources and Environment and several other interdisciplinary centers focused on environmental research. He has conducted conservation research over the last two decades throughout the tropics, especially in the Maya Forest and in the Greater Mekong Region of Southeast Asia. His research explores persistence, change and variation of traditional ecological knowledge and ethnobiology. Much of this work has focused on wild food plants and medicinal plants. His work has also focused on patterns and causes in the distribution of biological and cultural diversity (biocultural diversity). He is leading the Quest 3 experiential learning initiative at UF and also serves as online coordinator for the Department of Anthropology. He is an associate editor for several journals in environmental anthropology and ethnobiology. He is past-president of the Society for Economic Botany and current president of the International Society of Ethnobiology.
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