Michael Balick, Ph.D.

For more than three decades, Dr. Michael Balick has studied the relationship between plants and people, the field known as ethnobotany, and floristics, the study of botanical diversity within a specific region. Most of his research is in remote regions of the tropics, where he works with indigenous cultures to document plant diversity, knowledge of its traditional utilization and evaluation of the potential of botanical resources for broader application and use—while ensuring through legal mechanisms that benefits from such work are shared with local communities. He also conducts research in the urban environment in New York City, studying traditional healing practices of the Dominican immigrant community and working with local physicians and medical institutions to integrate evidence-based modalities into clinical practice, with the goal of improving the health care delivery system.

Dr. Balick has been active in ethnopharmacological investigations—the search for plants with medicinal properties—particularly in Belize where his research aided in the formation of the world’s first ethnobiomedical forest reserve. He co-founded the Ix Chel Tropical Research Foundation in 1987, a center in Belize devoted to traditional healing and cultural preservation. From 1986 to 1996 he helped lead a program sponsored by the US National Cancer Institute to survey the flora of Central and South America and the Caribbean for plants with potential activity against cancer and HIV/AIDS. Since 1997, his scientific studies have focused on Micronesia, on the islands of Pohnpei, Kosrae, Palau and surrounding remote atolls, documenting the diversity, local use and management of plant resources in this poorly known but biologically important area of the world and working with a coalition of NGO’s and governmental agencies to use these data in support of an ambitious region-wide plan for marine and terrestrial conservation. In 1981, he co-founded The New York Botanical Garden Institute of Economic Botany, with Sir Ghillean T. Prance. The Institute has grown to become the largest and most active group of researchers and graduate students in this field. Currently, he is Philecology Curator and Director, Institute of Economic Botany and Vice President for Botanical Science at The New York Botanical Garden.

Dr. Balick has authored over 150 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, and 18 scientific and general interest books and monographs, with titles ranging from Systematics and Economic Botany of the Oenocarpus-Jessenia (Palmae) Complex (NYBG Press), Useful Palms of the World (Columbia University Press: with Hans T. Beck), Checklist of the Vascular Plants of Belize (NYBG Press: with Michael H. Nee and Daniel E. Atha) to Plants, People, and Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany (Scientific American Press: with Paul Alan Cox). Over the past several years his books include Human Impacts on Amazonia: The Role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Conservation and Development (Columbia University Press: with Darrel Addison Posey), Plants of Semillas Sagradas: An Ethnomedicinal Garden in Costa Rica (with Rafael Ocampo), Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plants (Springer/NYBG Press: with Lewis Nelson and Richard Shih), and, most recently, Ethnobotany of Pohnpei: Plants, People and Island Culture: University of Hawaii Press/NYBG).

He has received numerous awards and honors for his scientific research and achievements. In 2009 he was given the Distinguished Economic Botanist award from the Society for Economic Botany in recognition of outstanding research, teaching and service, and that same year was accorded the high title of Luhk en Kairoir Dolen Katau Nett, in recognition of his service to the people of Pohnpei, Micronesia for his work in cultural and biodiversity conservation. In 2007 he received the Rachel Carson Award for Environmental Achievement from the Natural Products Association and was a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation during 2005-2006. He is the recipient of the 2004 American Association for the Advancement of Science International Award for Scientific Cooperation (“For leadership in the field of ethnobotany and devotion to establishing international collaborations and institutions that work toward preserving traditional knowledge and respect for the values of local communities.”) He received the Frontiers of Science Award from the Society of Cosmetics Chemists in 2001, was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1999, and received the E. K. Janaki Ammal Medal from the Society of Ethnobotanists in 1998 (“For his long and distinguished service to ethnobotany”.). Dr. Balick is a former President of the Society for Economic Botany, an international organization devoted to furthering research in the study of the relationship between plants and people, has been a Visiting Fellow at Green College, Oxford University, and serves on the boards of several scientific and cultural organizations. He received his Ph.D. and A.M. in Biology from Harvard University, studied at the Harvard Business School and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware. He currently holds adjunct teaching appointments at Columbia University, Fordham University, and City University of New York where he mentors graduate and undergraduate students working in the fields of ethnobotany and ethnomedicine, phytochemistry, floristics and conservation biology.