Ballot Archive

29 Aug 2024

Candidate Details

Candidate Name

Mark Nesbitt

Academic degrees, honours etc.

MSc Bioarchaeology, University of London (1984); PhD Archaeology, University College London (1987)

Profession or occupation

Senior Research Leader in Interdisciplinary Research, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Grounds for election

Nesbitt's research focuses on plant-people relationships through time, as explored through archaeological and museum specimens and published in 130 papers and books. His postgraduate studies focused on archaeobotany in the Near East, leading to a wide range of site reports in Turkey and elsewhere and advances in the understanding of wheat evolution. A recent outcome of this interest is his An Ancient Mesopotamian Herbal (2023). Since joining Kew in 1999 he has been curator of the 100,000-strong ethnobotanical collection, co-editing the award-winning Curating Biocultural Collections (2014) and developing research that repurposes 19th century colonial collections to address current-day issues, often through collaboration with source communities. Since 2021 he leads a new team charged with embedding humanities and social science research within Kew. Nesbitt is Past President of the Society for Ethnobotany and current President of the British Society for the History of Pharmacy.

Signatories

The following Fellows have signed this Blue Paper