Michael Jeffrey Balick

Michael Jeffrey Balick (born 1952) is an American ethnobotanist, economic botanist, and pharmacognosist,[6] known as a leading expert on the family Arecaceae (palms).[3]

Michael J. Balick
Born (1952-07-21) July 21, 1952
Philadelphia
Alma materUniversity of Delaware
Harvard University
Known forPlants, People, and Culture (1996)[1][2]
Scientific career
InstitutionsNew York Botanical Garden[3]
ThesisThe biology and economics of the Oenocarpus-Jessenia (Palmae) complex[4] (1980)
Doctoral advisorRichard Schultes[5]
Author abbrev. (botany)Balick

Education and career

Michael J. Balick graduated in 1975 with B.Sc. in agriculture and plant sciences from the University of Delaware, after spending the academic year 1972–1972 at Tel Aviv University. At Harvard University he graduated with M.Sc. in 1976 and Ph.D. in 1980, when he also received a certificate from Harvard Business School. At the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) he was from 1980 to 1989 an associate curator and the executive assistant to NYBG's president and is since 1989 NYBG's Philecology Curator of Economic Botany. In 1981 he was the co-founder, with Ghillean Prance, of NYBG's Institute of Economic Botany and since 1990 has been the institute's director. Balick has been an adjunct professor at Columbia University, Fordham University, the City University of New York,[7] New York University, and Yale University.[8]

Balick has worked in ethnobotany and ethnomedicine in remote areas of the tropics with people of indigenous cultures, as well as in New York City with people having traditional herbal knowledge[7] from China and the Caribbean.[9] From 1974 to 1975 he lived in Costa Rica and helped to found the Las Cruces Biological Station. From 1975 to 1997 he was a frequent researcher in Amazonia, where he studied palms and their local uses. He has done research and taught university courses in "ethnobotany and ethnomedicine, phytochemistry, floristics and conservation biology."[7]

His scientific research has taken him to many countries, including Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Columbia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Federated States of Micronesia, Haiti, Honduras, India, Israel, Jamaica, Mexico, Palau, Peru, Sri Lanka, Trinidad, Thailand, Vanuatu, and Venezuela. His fieldwork also includes trips to the fruit and vegetable markets and botanicas of New York City and other urban areas.[3]

He co-founded the Ix Chel Tropical Research Foundation, a center in Belize devoted to traditional healing and cultural preservation. From 1986 to 1996 he helped lead the New York Botanical Garden’s collaboration with 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 AIDS. Currently, he is working with traditional cultures in Micronesia to document their use and management of plant resources.[8]

Balick is the author or co-author of more than 160 scientific articles or book chapters. He is also the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of at least twenty-five book and monographs, varied among scientific and general interest.[3] He has been a co-collector with more than two dozen botanists, including Brian M. Boom, Andrew J. Henderson, and Ghillean Prance.[7] Balick has been doing research with Gregory M. Plunkett on the plants and ethnobotany of Vanuatu's Tafea Province.[3]

Balick was elected in 1999 a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)[10] and in 2004 received the AAAS International Award for Scientific Cooperation. For the academic year 2005-2006 he was a Guggenheim Fellow. He was the president of the Society for Economic Botany in 1992 and in 2009 was a recipient of the Society's Distinguished Economic Botanist award.[7]

Selected publications

Articles
  • Balick, Michael J. (1984). "Ethnobotany of Palms in the Neotropics". Advances in Economic Botany. 1: 9–23. JSTOR 43931365.
  • Peters, Charles M.; Balick, Michael J.; Kahn, Francis; Anderson, Anthony B. (1989). "Oligarchic forests of economic plants in Amazonia: utilization and conservation of an important tropical resource". Conservation Biology. 3 (4): 341–349. doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.1989.tb00240.x. PMID 21129021.
  • Balick, Michael J.; Mendelsohn, Robert (1992). "Assessing the Economic Value of Traditional Medicines from Tropical Rain Forests". Conservation Biology. 6 (1): 128–130. doi:10.1046/j.1523-1739.1992.610128.x. JSTOR 2385858.
  • Cox, Paul Alan; Balick, Michael J. (1994). "The Ethnobotanical Approach to Drug Discovery". Scientific American. 270 (6): 82–87. Bibcode:1994SciAm.270f..82C. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0694-82. JSTOR 24942736. PMID 8023119.
  • Mendelsohn, Robert; Balick, M. J. (1995). "The value of undiscovered pharmaceuticals in tropical forests". Economic Botany. 49 (2): 223–228. doi:10.1007/BF02862929. S2CID 39978586.
  • Balick, Michael J. (1996). "Transforming Ethnobotany for the New Millennium". Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden. 83 (1): 58–66. doi:10.2307/2399968. ISSN 0026-6493. JSTOR 2399968.
  • Sheldon, Jennie Wood; Balick, Michael J.; Laird, Sarah A.; Milne, George M. (1997). "Medicinal Plants: Can Utilization and Conservation Coexist?". Advances in Economic Botany. 12: i–104. JSTOR 43931401.
  • Slish, Donald F.; Ueda, Hiroko; Arvigo, Rosita; Balick, Michael J. (1999). "Ethnobotany in the search for vasoactive herbal medicines". Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 66 (2): 159–165. doi:10.1016/S0378-8741(98)00225-6. PMID 10433472.
  • Balick, Michael J.; Kronenberg, Fredi; Ososki, Andreana L.; Reiff, Marian; Fugh-Berman, Adriane; Bonnie, O'Connor; Roble, Maria; Lohr, Patricia; Atha, Daniel (2000). "Medicinal plants used by latino healers for women's health conditions in New York City". Economic Botany. 54 (3): 344–357. doi:10.1007/BF02864786. S2CID 33839980.
  • Sosa, S.; Balick, M.J.; Arvigo, R.; Esposito, R.G.; Pizza, C.; Altinier, G.; Tubaro, Aurelia (2002). "Screening of the topical anti-inflammatory activity of some Central American plants". Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 81 (2): 211–215. doi:10.1016/S0378-8741(02)00080-6. PMID 12065153.
  • Camporese, A.; Balick, M.J.; Arvigo, R.; Esposito, R.G.; Morsellino, N.; Simone, F.De; Tubaro, A. (2003). "Screening of anti-bacterial activity of medicinal plants from Belize (Central America)". Journal of Ethnopharmacology. 87 (1): 103–107. doi:10.1016/S0378-8741(03)00115-6. PMID 12787962.
  • Vandebroek, Ina; Balick, Michael J. (2012). "Globalization and Loss of Plant Knowledge: Challenging the Paradigm". PLOS ONE. 7 (5): e37643. Bibcode:2012PLoSO...737643V. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0037643. PMC 3360753. PMID 22662184.

Books

References
  1. Marderosian, Ara der (1996). "Review of Plants, People, and Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany by Michael J. Balick and Paul Alan Cox". The Quarterly Review of Biology. 71 (4): 572. doi:10.1086/419583.
  2. Knelman, Fred H. (2000). "Reviewed work: Plants, People and Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany, Michael J. Balick, Paul Alan Cox". Peace Research. 32 (1): 92–94. JSTOR 23607689.
  3. "Michael J. Balick, Vice President for Botanical Science, Director and Philecology Curator, Institute of Economic Botany". New York Botanical Garden. (website with PDF links for more than 120 publications)
  4. Balick, Michael J. (1980). "The biology and economics of the Oenocarpus-Jessenia (Palmae) complex". Hollis, Harvard University Library.
  5. "Lawrence Memorial Award" (PDF). Bulletin of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. 1 (2): 2. Fall 1979.
  6. "Michael Balick". Graduate Center, City University of New York.
  7. "Balick, Michael Jeffrey". JSTOR Global Plants.
  8. "Michael J. Balick, Ph.D." Brain Chemistry Labs.
  9. "Michael J. Balick". American Museum of Natural History.
  10. "Historic Fellows". American Association for the Advancement of Science.
  11. Clement, Charles R. (Summer 1994). "Review of New directions in the study of plants and people: research contributions from the Institute of Economic Botany by Ghillean T. Prance and Michael J. Balick" (PDF). Journal of Ethnobiology. 14 (1): 125–127.
  12. Schultes, Richard Evans (1993). "Review of The Subsidy from Nature by Anthony B. Anderson, Peter H. May & Michael J. Balick". Environmental Conservation. 20 (2): 187. doi:10.1017/S037689290003798X.
  13. Milliken, W. (1998). "Review of Medicinal Plants: Can utilization and conservation coexist? by Jennie Wood Shelton, Michael J. Balick & Sarah A. Laird". Edinburgh Journal of Botany. 55 (2): 324–325. doi:10.1017/S0960428600002262.
  14. Browning, Dominique (May 29, 2014). "Summer Reading: Gardening (with brief review of Rodale's 21st-Century Herbal)". New York Times.
  15. IPNI.  Balick.
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