Dr William Milliken

Research Leader

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Department

Trait Diversity and Function

Team

Plant Humanities

Specialism

Ethnobotany, useful plants, medicinal plants, Indigenous peoples, traditional knowledge, training, documentation, plant biodiversity.

My role is the development and leadership of a research programme focused on the application of plant and fungal science to human livelihoods and climate change adaptation, including health, food security and the restoration of natural capital.

This has included projects, in collaboration with Indigenous peoples, training younger generations to record threatened traditional knowledge from older knowledge-holders.

Fieldwork has primarily focussed on the Brazilian Amazon, but have also conducted ethnobotany research, biodiversity assessment and training in Mozambique, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Indonesia, New Guinea, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the UK.   

  • MA, Natural Sciences, University of Cambridge, 1985
  • PhD, University of Cambridge, 1999

Pankararu, C. J., Teixidor-Toneu, I., Odonne, G., Asante, F., Bandeira, S. O., Barrera-Bello, Á. M., ... Milliken, W., ... & Hanazaki, N. (2026).  

A global biodiversity use data infrastructure acknowledging indigenous and local knowledge.  

npj Biodiversity, 5(1), 7. 

Pironon, S., Ondo, I., Diazgranados, M., Allkin, R., Baquero, A. C., Cámara-Leret, R., Ulian, T., Milliken, W. ... & Willis, K. J. (2024).  

The global distribution of plants used by humans.  

Science, 383(6680), 293-297. 

Milliken, W. (2023).  

Ethnoveterinary data in Britain and Ireland: can native herbal medicine promote animal health?  

Ethnobotany Research and Applications, 26, 1-32. 

Martins, L., Fonseca-Kruel, V., Cabalzar, A., Azevedo, D. L., Milliken, W., Nesbitt, M., & Scholz, A. (2021).  

A maloca entre artefatos e plantas : guia da coleção Rio Negro de Richard Spruce em Londres.  

Instituto Socioambiental.  

Milliken, W., Walker, B. E., Howes, M. J. R., Forest, F., & Lughadha, E. N. (2021).  

Plants used traditionally as antimalarials in Latin America: Mining the tree of life for potential new medicines.  

Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 279, 114221. 

Milliken, W. (2021).  

Traditional Medicines Amongst Indigenous Groups in Roraima, Brazil: A Retrospective.  

Ethnoscientia-Brazilian Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnoecology, 6(3), 116-139. 

See more publications

  • Weaving Rivers and Connecting Communities

    Documenting endangered traditional practices and associated knowledge among the Ye’kwana Indigenous people, Brazil

  • Digital Amazon

    Increasing access to Richard Spruce’s ethnobotanical collections as a resource for environmental change and indigenous knowledge.

Get in touch

Email

w.milliken@kew.org

Twitter

@willmilliken

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William Milliken

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William Milliken