Aswini Pai has found ample opportunities at St. Lawrence to conduct her research while teaching some of her favorite subjects: ethnobotany, tropical ecology and general biology.

“I knew I wanted to be in academia or a research-oriented organization because I wanted to keep learning,” she says.  “St. Lawrence seemed to have the right mix of things that I wanted to do for a profession.”

Pai, an assistant professor of biology, focuses her research on the sustainable use of medicinal plants, a critical resource to the world’s pharmaceutical, cosmetic, nutraceutical and dietary supplements industries, using principles of plant ecology, population biology, ethnobotany and conservation biology. 

“The most frustrating aspect of medicinal plant management is that little is known about the status or biology of many medicinal plants,” she explains.  “A major drawback when designing a management plan for medicinal plant populations is the lack of information on the ecology of these species. My research tries to address these gaps.”

Pai is also researching indigenous management of agrobiodiversity in tropical areas.  “Cultures all over the world maintain a diverse array of crops and horticultural, agroforestry and culturally sacred species through home gardens, in field margins and in sacred groves,” she says.  “These are cultural methods of conserving biodiversity that are being gradually eroded. I examine factors such as the species composition and diversity in these areas, how cultural management practices affect species, and the economic importance of these areas to household food security and rural markets.”

Prior to St. Lawrence, Pai was an ecologist for five years with Development Alternatives, an organization that works on sustainable development in India, and then was a teaching assistant at Ohio University while earning her Ph.D. in environmental and plant biology. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from Mahatma Gandhi University in 1991 and her Master of Science in wildlife ecology in 1993 from the Wildlife Institute of India.