Rick Stepp is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Latin American Studies at the University of Florida. He is a core faculty member of the Tropical Conservation and Development Program and the Land Use and Environmental Change Institute. He is also an affiliate faculty member of the School of Natural Resources and Environment and the Florida Museum of Natural History. He has conducted ethnobiological research in the Maya Forest of Belize, Guatemala and Mexico, working primarily with Tzeltal, Mopan and Q'eqchi' Maya. He also works with Garinagu in coastal Central America. His research explores persistence, change and variation of traditional ecological knowledge and ethnobotany. Along with his graduate students, he is developing a global GIS database for biocultural diversity with support from The Christensen Fund. Other research interests include medical anthropology, visual anthropology, GIS and land use change and human ecosystems theory. He is also involved in documentary and ethnographic film production on topics both related and unrelated to his primary research. He is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-STAR and David L. Boren fellow.