My undergraduate and graduate education emphasized systematic botany and plant community ecology. My current research interests and publications include work in new crop development, drug discovery, and floristic plant geography.
What ties these fields together is my knowledge and interest in the plants of Arizona and the Southwest. I draw on this background in trying to find the best plants to develop as new sources of particular natural products, in identifying and finding species with novel biochemical activity, and in conducting plant biodiversity surveys of areas of special interest.