When not hiking in the Alps, looking for rare plants in the desert, or searching for endangered butterflies in a remote valley, I am a historical biogeographer, Lepidopterist, and lecturer at Johns Hopkins University.

Most interested in the intricate population dynamics and historic distribution of high-altitude Lepidoptera, I am the founder and principal researcher at the LEP-LAB, where our work is focused on trying to understand the distribution of endangered and rare butterflies in the high Pyrenees, and in the remote valleys of the parc national du Mercantour and the parc national des Écrins. The LAB is also working on mapping the historic collecting locations of the extinct large blue butterfly, Maculinea arion, across the United Kingdom.

My long-term biogeographic projects include tracing the locations of the specimens and collectors, whose work is contained in the monumental Biologia Centrali-Americana, and researching the historical collecting and explorations of the Lepidopterists, James John Joicey, Henry John Elwes, Vladimir Nabokov and William Fassnidge.

Interested in the interplay of archaeology and natural history, and formerly the curator of the Jay Kislak Collection of the Archaeology of the Early Americas, at the Library of Congress, I am the author or editor of more than two hundred articles, reviews, and books, including the New York Times selection, MAP: Exploring the World, and the more recent, Collecting for a New World and Exposing the Maya.

A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS), I find pondering the biological mysteries contained in ancient DNA, wondering about the fate of Colias ponteni, and marveling at the complexity to be found in Darwin’s tangled bank, strangely comforting.