I'm generally interested in the sense that people make of place through daily practices, and particularly through relationships and interactions with the wider ecological community. One of the easiest and most enjoyable paths into this is investigating the ethnobotany and cultural biogeography of food plants — since people are often happy to talk about food, and, if nothing else, this leads to new interesting things to eat and drink! As mundane as this may sound, I think it can also lead productively to insights about the persistance of — and people’s ways of understanding — cultural and biological diversity.

I like working in Hawai‘i, the Pacific, Mexico and western north America — not least because of the food and the people!

Geog 101L: Introduction to the Natural Environment Lab classes (UHM 2008-2010)
Geog x99 (coord.): Field Mapping practicum Continuing Arboretum Tree Survey (09-10)
Geog 365: Geography of the Pacific (UHM Summer 2010)
Geog 425: Geography of Film (UHM Summer 2011)
Guest lectures: Botany 105 (UHM 2003, 2005), Botany 444 (UHM 2004, 2007, 2009) Geography 102 (UHM 2010)
Workshop: Installing Open-Source GIS software (UHM Spring 2010)
Workshop: Ethnobotanical filmmaking (UHM 2005, 2007; SEB Chiangmai 2006)
Workshop: NV & Woods Skills Training (various places for EF!, RAG/RAN etc. 1988-1993)

Bot 105: Introduction to Ethnobotany (UHM 2012)
Bot 444: Ethnoecology and Conservation - Intensive (UHM 2012)
Bot 446: Hawaiian Ethnobotany (UHM 2012)
Geog/Biol 410: Human Role in Environmental Change (UHM 2012)
Geog 426: Environment, Resources & Society (UHM 2012)
Curriculum development for the Kaʻimi loa o ka hihi Project (2010-2011)

Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers (CLAG)
International Biogeography Society (IBS)
International Society of Ethnobiology (ISE)
Onipa‘a na Hui Kalo
Society for Economic Botany (SEB)

The cross-Pacific Nao de China plant exchange workgroup
The Ethnobiological Media Archive
Culinary Practices in Shared Kitchens: a proposal for a collaborative film project
Green Chopsticks: a site examining the impact of disposable chopsticks
Grass Radicals: the barebones layout for a site connecting food, plants and language,
     under the grass radical (艹) used in many Chinese plant names