Expert Advisory Council
Zoë Gardner, M.S., Ph.D.(c)
Research & Development Manager, Traditional Medicinals
Fascinated by the connection between people and plants, Zoë Gardner has been studying, researching, and teaching on the production, conservation, quality, safety, and appropriate use of medicinal plants since 1998. After completing her undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies at the Audubon Expedition Institute, Zoë helped to establish the Medicinal Plant Program at the University of Massachusetts, earning her master’s degree there in Plant & Soil Sciences. More recently, Zoë joined the Research & Development Department at Traditional Medicinals, a leading producer of botanical dietary supplements. A self-proclaimed “herb nerd,” Zoë is currently completing her Ph.D. on medicinal plant quality and safety.
Michael McGuffin
President, American Herbal Products Association
Michael McGuffin has been active in the herbal industry since 1975, having owned and managed both retail and manufacturing businesses in this field. He is the Managing Editor of Botanical Safety Handbook, First Edition (1997) and of Herbs of Commerce, 2nd Edition (2000). He serves on the boards of the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia and United Plant Savers; on the Advisory Board of the USC School of Pharmacy Regulatory Science Program; and as chair of the U.S. Technical Advisory Group for ISO/TC 249, the International Organization for Standardization’s Technical Committee on Traditional Chinese Medicine (provisional title). Michael maintains active involvement with regulatory agencies, and served on FDA’s Food Advisory Committee Working Group on Good Manufacturing Practices for Dietary Supplements (1998-99), FDA’s Food Advisory Committee’s Dietary Supplements Subcommittee (2003-05), and California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Analysis Food Warning Workgroup (2008-2010).
Roy Upton, RH (AHG), DAyu
Executive Director, American Herbal Pharmacopoeia
Roy Upton has been trained in traditional Ayurvedic, Chinese and Western herbal traditions, has studied Native American and Caribbean ethnobotanical traditions, and is a professional member of the American Herbalists Guild. He is the Executive Director and Editor of the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia and a member of the Standards Committee of the American Herbal Products Association and advisory committees for the American Botanical Council, AOAC International, and NSF International. Along with being an author and lecturer, Roy was co-founder and past president of the American Herbalists Guild and is the herbalist and director of the California-based herbal company Planetary Herbals.
Soaring Bear, Ph.D.
Technical Information Specialist (Ret.), National Library of Medicine Pharmacopoeia
Dr. Soaring Bear has been collecting herbal data, with a focus on toxicology, since the early 1970s. He earned a B.S. in Biochemistry with honors and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Arizona. His doctoral research on structure-activity relationships and chemical interactions provides him with a unique perspective on bioactivity of herbs. He created herbmed.org and edited over ten thousand quick summaries and links into Medline. His work at the National Library of Medicine in the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) section included significant revisions of the herbal, alternative medicine, and chemistry sections of MeSH, which improves the quality of millions of searches done every day on the pubmed.gov database.
David Winston, RH (AHG)
President, Herbalist & Alchemist
David Winston is an herbalist and ethnobotanist with over 40 years of training in Cherokee, Chinese, and Western/Eclectic herbal traditions. David is a founding/professional member of the American Herbalists Guild and has been in clinical practice for over 33 years. He is an herbal consultant to many physicians and other healthcare professionals throughout the U.S. and Canada. David is also the president of Herbalist & Alchemist, Inc. and founder and director of David Winston’s Center for Herbal Studies and the Herbal Therapeutics Research Library. He is the author of numerous texts on herbal medicine, is an internationally known lecturer, and teaches frequently at medical schools, symposia, and herb conferences.
Daniel Gagnon, M.S., RH (AHG)
President, Herbs, Etc.
Daniel Gagnon, owner of Herbs, Etc., has been a practicing herbalist since 1976. Daniel has studied medical herbalism, pharmacognosy, and related subjects at the Santa Fe College of Natural Medicine, the College of Santa Fe, and the University of New Mexico. He received his B.S. in herbal medicine from the North American College of Botanical Medicine and his M.S. in herbal medicine from the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine. Daniel was a faculty member of the North American College of Botanical Medicine for over 10 years and currently serves as an herbal consultant to healthcare providers. He is the author of several books on herbal medicine.
Aviva Jill Romm, M.D.
Director, Integrative Medicine for Women and Children
Before becoming a physician, Dr. Aviva Romm was a recognized expert in midwifery, women’s health, and women’s and pediatric botanical medicine, and she practiced as a homebirth midwife and herbalist for over 20 years. A graduate of the Yale School of Medicine, she completed her internship in internal medicine (Yale) and her residency in family medicine (Tufts). She was the president of the American Herbalists Guild, the founder and director of Herbal Medicine for Women, a distance learning program, and is the Medical Director for the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia. Dr. Romm has been active in establishing standards for botanical medicine practice and education in the United States, and is the author of numerous texts on botanical medicine, pregnancy, and children’s health.
Tieraona Low Dog, M.D.
Director of the Fellowship, Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine,
University of Arizona College of Medicine
Dr. Tieraona Low Dog’s extensive career in natural medicine began more than 25 years ago. A graduate of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Tieraona has served as president of the American Herbalists Guild and is currently the Director of the Fellowship at the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona School of Medicine. She has been involved in national health policy and regulatory issues, serving previously on the White House Commission of Complementary and Alternative Medicine and as a member of the Advisory Council for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and is currently Chair of the U.S. Pharmacopeia Dietary Supplements and Botanicals Expert Committee.
Mary Hardy, M.D.
Medical Director, UCLA Center for Integrative Oncology
Dr. Mary Hardy is an integrative medicine physician who received her Doctor of Medicine degree from Louisiana State University School of Medicine and studied medical ethics at Harvard Divinity School and Loma Linda University. She has studied with herbal practitioners in the United States and Europe and visited traditional healers in Peru, Kenya, South Africa, Morocco and China. She is the complementary and alternative medicine expert for a number of research projects conducted by the Southern California Evidence Based Practice Center at the RAND Corporation, co-chairperson of the Clinical Practice Committee of the Academic Consortium of Integrative Medicine, and associate director of the UCLA Botanical Research Center, funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Lyle Craker, Ph.D.
Professor, Medicinal Plant Program, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Dr. Lyle Craker has been a researcher in the field of medicinal plants for over 30 years. With a Ph.D. in Agronomy from the University of Minnesota, he is Founding and past Editor of the Journal of Herbs, Spices, and Medicinal Plants, founding and current Executive Editor of the Journal of Medicinally Active Plants, past chairman of the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) Section on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, organizer of the Herb, Spice, & Medicinal Plant Working Group within the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS), and an organizing member of International Council on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants and the American Council for Medicinally Active Plants. He is an advisory board member of the American Botanical Council and serves on the board of the AHPA Foundation for Education and Research on Botanicals.