Gregory Plunkett is the Director and Curator of the Cullman Program for Molecular Systematics at the New York Botanical Garden. Before joining the Cullman Program at NYBG in 2009, he was a Professor of Biology at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he served on the Faculty for over 12 years, teaching courses in general botany, plant taxonomy, economic botany, and molecular systematics. His fieldwork has been concentrated in the Southwest Pacific islands, especially Melanesia (including Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands), where many genera and species of Araliaceae and its relatives are endemic (e.g., Schefflera, Polyscias, Osmoxylon, Meryta, Myodocarpus, and Delarbrea). He also works in tropical and temperate South America, where several groups of Apiales have experienced parallel radiations along the Andes, including Schefflera and Hydrocotyle (Araliaceae), and Apiaceae subfamily Azorelloideae.
