stephen

Born in North Carolina, grew up in Virginia, Bangladesh, West Virginia, Kentucky, Florida and . I´ve travelled extensively, covering most of South East Asia, a good chunk of Europe, including the U.S.S.R when it was still in existence. Also Trinidad, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Belize, Mexico, Panama and Colombia. When I started school I thought that I wanted to be an anthropologist, but then I took my first botany class. I have now dedicated my life to studying plants, and the relationship between then and us humans who rely on them. For the last five years I have studied the botany and natural history of Panama. My dream is to one day open a series of biological field stations that will be staffed by indigenous and other local peoples. For the last year I worked on developing the infrastructure to open a parataxonomy program in Darien, Panama with the Embera, Waunaan and African descended peoples of the Darien/Choco. Currently I am the resident botanist at the Key West Tropical Botanic Garden. There I am helping to develop an education program to support science education in the public schools of the Lower Florida Keys. In addition, I serve as interim horticultural director.