I am also associated with the Center for Conservation Biology, Mike Allen, Director; others associated include Edie Allen and several other conservation biologists.  There is also an Environmental Studies program that integrates people from social and biological sciences, including political scientists, philosophers, earth scientists, engineers, restoration ecologists...anyone interested in improving the environment. It's a wonderful group.

Many of us in the Dept. of Anthropology do research related to cultural ecology and/or agrarian anthropology. We have a range of projects going on, and can always use more help. Several of us work in the Yucatan Peninsula with the Maya. There are possibilities for local projects.

We have a large number of faculty, in all four subdisciplines of anthropology, working with ecological and ethnobiological data. I work primarily in the area of ethnobiology. Individually tailored advising and course work links the Anthropology Department with the Botany and Plant Sciences Department. Those interested in traditional knowledge and use of plants (including herbal medicine in practice), or in archaeology of plant use (paleoethnobotany), usually come into the Anthropology graduate program. The Botany program attracts those interested in pharmacological matters, as well as genetic evolution, chemistry, plant ecology, and traditional economic botany (plant products, agronomy, pest control, etc.). Some brave souls major in both--we have produced one joint Ph.D. so far (but it took him many years to do it). Inevitably, students take courses and guided research work in both departments.

In Anthropology, we have several faculty members who concentrate on agriculture, cultural ecology, or ethnobiology:

- Scott Fedick (archaeology of agriculture and agricultural settlement in the Yucatan Peninsula, especially Classic Maya; also, US Southwest)

- Paul Gelles (irrigation and society; Peru)

- Maria Cruz Torres (fisheries; political ecology; Mexico and Caribbean)

- Alan Fix (biological anthropology, including human evolutionary ecology)
and myself (ethnobiology, political ecology; work in China and Mexico, and I have worked in British Columbia).

The ones who do the most with ethnobotany are Scott Fedick and myself; the other archaeologists here are involved with paleoethnobotany to varying degrees.

Most of the rest of us here do something connected with ecological issues--Michael Kearney, for example, studies agricultural workers, and David Kronenfeld teaches methodology.

In the Dept. of Botany and Plant Sciences, some people involved in economic botany:
- Giles Waines (crop plant evolution)

- Tony Huang (oilseeds and other industrial crops).

There are many more involved in agricultural science and ecology—too many to list. We are a major center of research on crop plants, insects and insect pests, restoration ecology, and conservation biology. We are building in environmental social sciences, with interested people in the departments of Political Science and Economics as well as Anthropology.

There are also some people in other departments who do relevant work, e.g. Richard Minnich (Earth Sciences Dept.; vegetation geography, human-caused changes in vegetation).

Relative to other leading programs, we are particularly good on food plants, evolutionary ecology, conservation and management issues, and agrarian questions. We are relatively less strong in medical and drug ethnobotany.