David is no stranger to CTFS. In 1996, he led the establishment of the Korup 50-hectare plot in Cameroon. He then went on to PhD studies at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, where he worked on the systematics and ecology of Carapa (Meliaceae), describing a series of species new to science. Following the completion of his PhD in 2008, he spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
In addition to taxonomic expertise on the flora of Central and West Africa, David has extensive experience in tropical forest ecology and data management. During his career, he has assembled botanical collections and carried out forest inventories in more than 10 tropical countries.
David will be based at the CTFS office at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.