People
Dr. Anna Dixon
Instructor
Contact
Email: dixonar@usf.edu
Bio
Dr. Anna Dixon studies how people and plants interact. As an ethnobotanist and medical anthropologist, her research interests include human-plant coevolution, landscape reconstruction and the economic and medicinal uses of plants.
Education
- M.A., University of Tennessee at Knoxville
- Ph.D., University of Hawaii at Manoa
Teaching
Dixon teaches a variety of undergraduate courses, including courses on cultural, linguistic and archeological anthropology. Prior to joining USFSP in 2011, Dixon worked as a criminal investigator for the state of Florida, where she specialized in capital punishment appeals. Her experience as a criminal investigator informs her courses on forensic anthropology.
Research
For her doctoral work, Dixon studied the transformation of traditional Hawaiian medicinal plants into the contemporary marketplace. This work entailed investigating how native populations incorporate traditional medicines into the treatment of contemporary lifestyle diseases. Dixon has recently presented research on topics ranging from plants used in tattooing to the traditional uses of Florida’s endemic plants, which are endangered by development.