Biography

Erin Smith is a medical herbalist and ethnobotanist and has been studying medicinal plants for over 20 years. Bringing together her passion for plants and cultures, she received her MSc in Ethnobotany with distinction from the University of Kent in Canterbury, where her thesis focused on women’s knowledge of traditional medicine in Morocco. For ten years she worked internationally with indigenous communities on various issues surrounding traditional medicine, natural resource management, community-based conservation, and traditional knowledge. She was Head Researcher for a joint project with the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations and Wageningen University in Netherlands on a project that explored livelihoods, female-headed households and the use of plant resources in Tigray, Ethiopia. She worked with Global Diversity Foundation in the UK and Morocco and is the former Managing Director of Global Diversity Foundation – North America. She has been an independent consultant since 2010 and has worked internationally on diverse projects and for diverse organizations, including The Organic Center and Global Initiative for the Traditional Systems (GIFTS) of Health. She has taught internationally on herbal medicine, ethnobotany, and the human/nature relationship for over ten years and has spent more than twelve years living and working abroad in more than twenty countries. She is the creator of Plant-Passionate Living™, an interactive program designed to help people find greater health and vitality through a deeper relationship with plants, and the founding Director of Center for Integrative Botanical Studies in Boulder, Colorado.