Education

• B.S. 2004. University of North Carolina at Asheville, Biology
• M.S. Currently studying at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Botany

Honors

• 2007 Foreign Language Area Student Fellow, Tianjin, China
• 2008 NSF IGERT Fellow, China
• 2008 UW-Madison Botany Davis Fellow

Research Interests

Ethnobotany; Phytochemistry; Human medicinal and nutritional plant use; Whole plant nutrition and natural products; Environmentally sustainable growing and harvesting methods of medicinal plants; Conservation of genetic diversity in plants used as food and medicine.

Current Research

Conducting a qualitative and quantitative comparison of the bioactive alkaloids of Fritillaria cirrhosa (Liliaceae, 贝母), which is commonly used as a cough suppressant and antitussive in Traditional Chinese Medicine. In collaboration with Kunming Institute of Botany in Yunnan Province, China, cultivated and non-cultivated populations will be investigated to distinguish the influence of harvesting on the biochemical diversity of this medicinal herb.

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