Joseph Mays

Experience

• 

  Sneed's Nursery and Garden Center

  Oct 2012 - Oct 2014

  Nursery Associate
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  Third Millennium Alliance

  Aug 2014 - Nov 2014

  Intern

  I worked as a tropical food production and permaculture intern at the cloud forest research field station in Jama-Coaque, Ecuador. I also conducted an ethnobotanical survey and wrote a medicinal plant guide while volunteering with the Ceiba Foundation.

• 

  Virginia Commonwealth University

  Jan 2015 - Jul 2015

  Teaching Assistant

  Precepting, leading lectures, grading papers, writing proposals, and running review sessions for two Introduction to Anthropology classes. Curating specimens for the Vertebrate Natural History (VNH) Lab, organizing and running regular review sessions for VNH students, and proctoring and grading exams.

• 

  Cortijo San Lorenzo

  Aug 2015 - Nov 2015

  Permaculture Design Specialist

  Planning and implementing a full redesign of a hillside to convert a desertified slope into a productive landscape. Constructing terraced plots and irrigation, enriching soil and sheet-mulching, and planting a polycutural vegetable garden to create an edible landscape in the Sierra Nevada.

• 

  Merrifield Garden Center

  Mar 2016 - Mar 2018

  Customer Service Specialist

  Providing design, landscaping, planting, and retail services to customers and contractors. Identifying and maintaining trees and shrubs, diagnosing and treating plant pathologies, leading teams which planned and installed edible and native plants.

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  Union Stage

  Dec 2017 - Aug 2020

  • Bartender

    Dec 2017 - Aug 2020

  • Event Staff

    Dec 2017 - Dec 2017
• 

  Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

  Sept 2018 - Nov 2019

  Associate
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  University of Kent

  Sept 2018 - Aug 2020

  Selected as a spokesperson to discuss my own research and experiences so as to showcase Kent’s standard of excellence. Designing and implementing displays promoting graduate programs in the School of Anthropology and Conservation. Engaging with applicants from all backgrounds and age groups, fielding inquiries about coursework and research opportunities for a wide variety of different degree programs. Teaching a class on research methodology for social and environmental anthropology master’s students, outlining research proposal development and implementation in the field. Ethnobotany

  • Recruitment Team

    Oct 2019 - Aug 2020

  • Guest Lecturer

    Feb 2020 - Feb 2020

  • MSc Ethnobotany Student

    Sept 2018 - Oct 2019
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  University of Greenwich

  Aug 2019 - Aug 2019

  Breaking Convention 2019 Invited Speaker

  Social Science Student Essay Award Winner: Cosmology and Visionary Plants in Biocultural Conservation: Exploring the role of religious cosmology influenced by visionary plants in human-environment relationships in non-Western societies (link including PDF: https://breakingconvention.co.uk/awards.html )"My lecture was titled "Visionary Plants and Thinking Forests in Biocultural Conservation (Exploring ontology in human-environment relationships in the Amazon)" https://breakingconvention.co.uk/speaker-JosephMays.htmlMy filmed presentation is available at Breaking Convention's youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEI7MmqjbJE Show less

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  Chacruna Institute

  Aug 2020 - Feb 2025

  Conducting research and and building connections with small Indigenous communities throughout the Americas to support Chacruna’s mission of increasing cultural reciprocity in the psychedelic space. Fundraising, managing philanthropic contributions, publishing audiovisual materials. Gathering and collating data on biocultural conservation in the indigenous Americas; directly interfacing with local NGOs involved in cultural and ecological restoration; publishing articles and resources on ethnobotany and environmental anthropology

  • Program Director of the Indigenous Reciprocity Initiative of the Americas

    Jun 2021 - Feb 2025

  • Researcher

    Aug 2020 - Feb 2025
• 

  University of Saskatchewan

  Sept 2024 - now

  PHD Candidate, History of Medicine and Indigeous Human Rights

  Researching the intersections between the history of "psychedelic" medicine and Indigenous movements for human rights, community autonomy, and biocultural conservation.