Welcome to my website. I am a botanist and evolutionary biologist employed as an Assistant Curator of Botany at the New York Botanical Garden.  I am interested in the classification and evolution of tropical trees of the bean family  (Leguminosae) and the evolutionary and ecological processes that generate and maintain high species diversity in tropical rainforests. Perhaps half of all species on earth are found in tropical rainforests, which cover less than five percent of the earth’s land surface. Much of this biodiversity is poorly studied and is increasingly threatened by deforestation and climate change. The ongoing loss of such a large percentage of the world’s species in the tropics is deeply concerning, particularly given the under-explored potential of tropical species as new sources of food, energy, medicines, and building materials, not to mention the dramatic effects that rainforest destruction will likely have on global climate patterns and water supply.

 

My research on tropical trees is intended to provide baseline data to conservation planners working in the tropics. Often this means determining which species are present in a given area, how they got there, how genetic variation is distributed,  how species have come to survive in a particular environment, and how they are related to other species in the same area or elsewhere. For this work, I gather data from a variety of sources including museum specimens, field studies, geographic information systems, and DNA.