FWD 2 American Botanical Council Announces New Advisory Board Members

HerbalEGram: Volume 8, Number 5, May 2011

American Botanical Council Announces New
Advisory Board Members
The American Botanical Council (ABC) has recently added 9 new members to its Advisory Board. This board assists in the content and editorial development of various ABC publications such as HerbalGram, HerbalEGram, HerbClip, etc., and further provides myriad indispensable contributions.

The new members of the ABC Advisory Board include experts in clinical botanical medicine, botany and ethnobotany, herbal quality control, herb safety issues, essential oils, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and related disciplines.

“We are deeply grateful and honored to include these good friends and colleagues to the ABC Advisory Board,” said ABC Founder and Executive Director Mark Blumenthal. “In many ways, the appointment of these herb experts to the ABC Advisory Board reflects an already strong cooperative relationship that has existed for many years. The naming of many of these respected individuals and leaders is a public recognition of their long-term support for and contributions to ABC’s nonprofit educational mission.”

ABC welcomes the following highly accomplished individuals with great enthusiasm.


Kerry Bone is a longtime herbalist, professor, researcher, and successful author. He is known for helping to develop the herbal community throughout Australia and New Zealand. Bone currently serves as the director of research and development at MediHerb, an international herbal products company that he cofounded in 1986. He also runs his own herbal health practice and lectures as a professor in the University of New England’s Masters of Health Science in Herbal Medicine program. Bone has written 30 scientific papers on herbal research, as well as written and co-written 6 popular books on herbal medicine, including Principles and Practice of Phytotherapy: Modern Herbal Medicine (co-authored with Simon Mills; Churchill Livingstone, 1999), and The Essential Guide to Herbal Safety (also co-authored with Mills; Churchill Livingstone, 2005), which received the ABC James A. Duke Excellence in Botanical Literature Award in 2005.

Thomas Brendler is an ethnobotanist and expert on African, Pacific, and Balkan herbs. He serves as a consultant for numerous government and industry herbal medicine-related projects, including registering herbal products under the European Union’s Traditional Herbal Medicines Directive. Brendler also works through PlantaPhile, a consulting company he founded in 1997, to help protect biodiversity and to identify and collect data on medicinal plants and their traditional uses. He frequently makes international enthnopharmacologic trips, has helped organize important medicinal plant meetings in Africa, and also cofounded the organization now know as the Association of African Medicinal Plants Standards, of which he is currently director. Brendler has authored and co-authored numerous medicinal plant books and scientific articles, including serving as a co-author of the recently published African Herbal Pharmacopoeia (Association for African Medicinal Plants Standards, 2010).

Subhuti Dharmananda, PhD, a widely acknowledged expert on Traditional Chinese Medicine, is the founder and director of the Institute for Traditional Medicine and Preventative Health Care, Inc., a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1979 and now operates 2 traditional medicine clinics in addition to providing education about traditional medicine systems. In 1980, Dr. Dharmananda earned his PhD in biology from the University of California. He has contributed to several scientific journals, including the International Journal of Oriental Medicine, and has acted as a consultant for numerous herb companies. He was instrumental in the founding of other organizations, as well, such as All-The-Tea Company and People’s Herbs Incorporated.

Patricia L. Gerbarg, MD, is an assistant clinical professor in psychiatry at New York Medical College. Focusing on natural treatments that are safe and effective for various mental health conditions, Dr. Gerbarg writes, lectures, and conducts research on integrative psychiatry, herbs, nutrients, supplements, mind-body practices, and brain stimulation. She and her husband, Richard P. Brown, MD, co-authored The Rhodiola Revolution (Rodale, 2004) and How to use Herbs, Nutrients, and Yoga in Mental Health Care (WW Norton, 2008), the latter of which won national and international awards. Dr. Gerbarg received her MD from Harvard Medical School, completed her residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and graduated from the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.  

Mindy Green, MS, is a consultant with 35 years experience in the natural products and healthcare industries. Her specialty is aromatherapy and cosmetics, but she is also a licensed massage therapist and esthetician and has led numerous seminars, classes, and training programs, and given over 400 interviews to leading magazines and newspapers on herbs in health. She is co-author of Aromatherapy, A Complete Guide to the Healing Art (The Crossing Press, 1995) and author of Calendula (Keats Publishing, Inc., 1998) and Natural Perfumes (Interweave Press, 1999), and she has written many articles on using herbs and essential oils as botanical therapies. Though she now has her own consulting company, Green Scentsations, LLC, she previously worked for Aveda Corporation as clinical aromatherapist in the botanical research division, co-owned the California School of Herbal Studies, served as director of education for the Herb Research Foundation for 6 years, and was on the faculty of the Rocky Mountain Center for Botanical Studies for 8 years.

De-An Guo, PhD, is a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai. He also serves as Director of the National Engineering Laboratory for the Standardization of TCM Technology and as Director of the Research Center for Modernization of Traditional Chinese Medicine. In 1990, he received his PhD from Beijing Medical University’s pharmacognosy school of pharmaceutical sciences. He was the vice-editor-in-chief of the 2005 edition of Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China (People's Medical Publishing House, 2005). At present, he serves as editor or vice-editor for several highly respected international scientific journals, including Planta Medica and Phytomedicine.

Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, PhD, is the managing director of the Centre for Phytotherapy Research, and a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Mauritius. From 2004 to 2010, Dr. Gurib-Fakim held the position of Dean of the Faculty of Science and then Pro Vice Chancellor at the university. Her research includes extensive study of the medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) of the Indian Ocean. From 1987 to 1992, Dr. Gurib-Fakim acted as project leader for an inventory of MAPs of the Indian Ocean, funded by the European Development Fund, and in the early 2000s, Dr. Gurib-Fakim was national coordinator of the European Union’s “Indian Ocean University.” She has contributed to 26 books and a number of book chapters as an author and/or editor, and is a founding member of the Pan African Association of African Medicinal Plants. In 2007, Dr. Gurib-Fakim was made a fellow of the Linnaen Society of London.

Joe-Ann McCoy, PhD, is a botanist and the founder and director of Bent Creek Germplasm Repository at The North Carolina Arboretum. At Bent Creek, Dr. McCoy works toward establishing and adding onto collections of diverse native medicinal plant genetic resources, and also collaborates with fellow scientists and conducts her own research. Prior to this position, she served as a medicinal plant curator for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the US National Institutes of Health’s Center for Research on Botanical Dietary Supplements. Dr. McCoy has conducted medicinal plant research for 15 years, including work on black cohosh and St. John’s wort. She has received several grants to support her important work, as well as fellowships and awards throughout her career.

Aviva Romm, MD, is a well-known and respected expert in midwifery, women’s health, and herbalism, as well as the author of numerous popular books. In 2010, she authored Botanical Medicine for Women’s Health (Churchill Livingstone, 2010), the winner of ABC’s 2011 James A. Duke Excellence in Botanical Literature award. Dr. Romm—one of the first certified professional midwives in the United States—currently serves as medical director of the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia, executive editor of the Journal of the American Herbalists Guild, and a resident in family medicine at Tufts/Cambridge Health Alliance. She also directs and owns the educational project Herbal Medicine for Women, and has given many presentations across the country and contributed numerous chapters to medical textbooks and articles to various peer-reviewed publications.