Ethnobotany of the Andes

Dr. Narel Y. Paniagua Zambrana is an ethnobiologist and ethnobotanist working as a research associate at the Herbario Nacional de Bolivia, a part of the Instituto de Ecología at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres, and as a research associate at the Missouri Botanical Garden. She also works as a Research Consultant for the Institute of Botany at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia, and as a Profesor Invitado for the Facultád de Ciencias Biológicas at the Universidád Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Peru. In 2019, she was one of five scientists to receive the OWSD-Elsevier Foundation Award for Women Scientists in the Developing World.
Dr. Paniagua Zambrana specializes in the use and conservation of palms (Arecaceae). Her research focuses on ethnobotanical research and the preservation of traditional knowledge in Bolivia, Peru, Madagascar, the Caucasus, and the Himalayas.
Dr. Rainer W. Bussmann is an ethnobotanist and vegetation ecologist, and Co-Founder of the Institute of Botany’s Department of Ethnobotany at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia. Prior, he held directorship of the William L. Brown Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden, worked as research Fellow in Geography and the Environment at UT Austin, was Associate Professor of Botany and Scientific Director of the Harold Lyon Arboretum at the University of Hawaii, and was Assistant Professor at the Universitaet Bayreuth.
Dr. Bussmann’s work focuses on ethnobotanical research, and the preservation of traditional knowledge, in Bolivia, Peru, the Caucasus, and the Himalayas.