THE HISTORY OF THE WORD OF THE WORD IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD

Larry Schokman is the Director Emeritus of The Kampong of the National Tropical Botanical Garden. Originally an agricultural advisor and tea planter in Sri Lanka, he worked at The Kampong from 1973 until his retirement in 2007. He was awarded the American Horticultural Society Professional 2000 Award for the Director of a Botanical Garden in the United States; the Florida International University Medallion in 2006; Garden Club Presidents Award of Excellence in 1999. He was awarded David Fairchild Medal for Plant Exploration in 2015. Schokman was a Founder Member and later President of the Tropical Flowering Tree Society, and has served on its Board since 1988. He is currently on the Boards of TREEmendous Miami and the Friends of Chapman Field–USDA, the Advisory Committee of the University of Miami Gifford Arboretum, and has been a volunteer at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden for almost 44 years, where he serves as Plant Consultant at the Ramble and Mango Medic at their popular Mango Festival. He is the author of Plants of The Kampong.

Michael Maunder is Associate Dean for Research Engagement, College of Arts, Sciences, and Education at FIU and the Director of The Kampong. Mike is a botanic garden and species conservation professional with over 25 years’ experience in botanic garden management, design and planning, museum design, species and habitat conservation, conservation strategy and policy. Mike trained in horticulture at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and obtained his MSc (Taxonomy) and PhD (Conservation Genetics) from the University of Reading. Prior to working at FIU Mike worked for the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the National Tropical Botanical Garden and more recently at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden as Executive Director. He has extensive fieldwork and research experience in Europe, Middle East, Central and Eastern Africa, Caribbean and Pacific regions. Mike is a senior Editor for the international conservation journal Oryx and has just been appointed a U.S. board member for Botanic Gardens Conservation International.

Jessica Rosenberg is assistant professor of English at the University of Miami, where she teaches courses on Shakespeare, early modern literature and culture, and science and literature. Drawing on the history of the book and the history of science, her research examines the formative connections between poetry, print, and the natural world in early modern England. Her current project, Botanical Publics: Horticulture and Textual Culture in Early Modern England, traces the plants, flowers, and trees ubiquitous in the poetic and practical books published in 16th- and 17yh-century England, delineating a botanical poetics that understood both the printed word and the natural world to be composites of small pieces, recirculated and reassembled by new publics of readers and planters.

Emily Warschefsky is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Biological Science at Florida International University. She graduated from Reed College (Portland, OR) in 2009, and she is broadly interested in societies’ interactions with plants, particularly the process of domestication. She is currently conducting dissertation research on the evolution and domestication of the mango and its wild relatives in order to see how these forces have shaped the mango’s genetic diversity. This research, funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will help conserve genetic diversity to be used to improve mangoes through traditional breeding practices. Emily’s research also helps to tell the story of one of the world’s most important fruit crops.

Roger Horne is the Director of Community Health Initiatives for Urban GreenWorks, which brings environmental education, health and wellness initiatives to youth and adults in low-income, underserved neighborhoods in Miami. Roger graduated from Cornell University and has Masters in Health Administration and Public Health from The Medical College of Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University. Roger has managed Belafonte TACOLCY Center’s Annual Community Green Festival in Liberty City and created its first community, native butterfly garden and edible garden. He is a community liaison for the Circle of Brotherhood-District 5, the Miami Mayor’s Youth Council, the Miami-Dade Public School’s Student Advisory Board, and the Miami Children’s Initiative. He served as the Secretary of the City of Miami’s Urban Forestry Committee; is a member of the Consortium for a Healthier Miami-Dade, where he serves on two committees; and has served on the Board of the Urban Environmental League of Greater Miami, for the past 3 years. Roger was the naturalist at the Green Urban Living Center on Miami-Dade College’s North Campus from 2012-2014. He has been an IFAS-certified Master Gardener since 2011. Through his community development work with Heritage Continuum – an integrated design and architect firm, Roger works with groups across the social spectrum as an advocate and manager for green design and community jobs training.