Jan Salick

Salick gained her BA at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1973 and her MS from Duke University in 1977, both in biology. Her PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology was from Cornell University in 1983,[1][2] where she was a student of Richard B. Root.[3] Her thesis, on the crop plant, cassava (Manihot esculenta),[1] is entitled "Agroecology of the Cassava Lacebug".[4]

Salick worked at the New York Botanical Garden (1983–89), rising to Assistant Curator. She then joined the Department of Plant Biology at Ohio University (1989–2000) as assistant and then associate professor of tropical ecology and ethnobotany. She has since been Curator of Ethnobotany at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis,[1][2] and is also an adjunct professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis.[5]

One of the focuses of her recent research has been the alpine environment of the Himalayas, and in particular, the effects of climate change and human activities.[6] She worked with partners in China, Nepal and Bhutan to establish the Himalayan team of the Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments (GLORIA), an international network that aims to document plant life diversity in alpine regions globally and to study how it is affected by climate change over time.[7][8]

Plants used in traditional medicine and other forms of traditional knowledge are another interest.[6] With Wayne Law, Salick documented how the cotton-headed snow lotus (Saussurea laniceps), a rare species of Himalayan snow lotus used in traditional Chinese medicine and also often collected by tourists, has decreased in height over a century, apparently in response to pressure from humans selectively picking taller plants.[9][10] She has also published on the impact of traditional agricultural and forestry practices, for example, among the Yanesha (or Amuesha) people living on the upper Amazon in Peru.[11]

Salick served as a member of the International Council for Science (ICSU) Study Group on sustainable development in 2001–2.[12] In 2007, with Anja Byg, she organized a symposium on climate change and indigenous peoples, held at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Oxford University, UK.[13] In 2009, with Nancy Ross, she edited a special edition of the journal Global Environmental Change entitled "Traditional Peoples and Climate Change".[14] She co-edited (with Katie Konchar and Mark Nesbitt) the 2014 textbook, Curating Biocultural Collections, published by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which won the Postgraduate Textbook Prize of the Royal Society of Biology in 2015.[15]

Salick is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1992)[16] and the Linnean Society of London.[1][12] She served as president of the Society for Economic Botany in 1997–98[17] and received the society's Distinguished Economic Botanist award in 2014.[18]

Books

• J Salick, K Konchar, M Nesbitt, eds. Curating Biocultural Collections (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; 2014) (ISBN 1842464981)
• J Salick, RK Moseley. Khawa Karpo: Tibetan Traditional Knowledge and Biodiversity Conservation (Missouri Botanical Garden Press; 2012) (ISBN 1935641069}

Research papers

• Byg A, Salick J (2009). "Local perspectives on a global phenomenon—climate change in Eastern Tibetan villages". Global Environmental Change. 19: 156–166. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2009.01.010.
• Law W, Salick J (July 2005). "Human-induced dwarfing of Himalayan snow lotus, Saussurea laniceps (Asteraceae)". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 102: 10218–20. doi:10.1073/pnas.0502931102. PMC 1177378. PMID 16006524. doi:10.1073/pnas.0502931102
• Salick J, Cellinese N, Knapp S (1997). "Indigenous diversity of cassava: generation, maintenance, use and loss among the Amuesha, Peruvian upper Amazon". Economic Botany. 51: 6–19. doi:10.1007/bf02910400.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

• Jan Salick publications indexed by Google Scholar
• Missouri Botanical Garden