This is a Professional Development Fellowship that entails a scholar in STS and information science acquiring training in biodiversity and bioinformatics. For one semester he will study the work of producing the Flora of North America, under the supervision of Dr. John Schnase. The training and ethnographic work undertaken at the Missouri Botanical Garden will be complemented by coursework at the University of Illinois in ecology and the environment. For the second semester the PI will work with Dr. Nancy van house and will visit the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, in Santa Barbara. Throughout this training he will also carry out historical and ethnographic research on the sciences of biodiversity.