Dr. Charles A. Butterworth joined the Desert Botanical Garden as a Research Scientist in September 2004 in a collaborative joint appointment with Arizona State University, School of Life Sciences. His research interests focus on the use of DNA to investigate evolutionary relationships among different species of cacti. Dr. Butterworth earned his Ph.D. in Botany from Iowa State University and his B.S. in Botany from Reading University, Reading UK. He also completed undergraduate studies in environmental science and ecology at the University of Stirling, Stirling Scotland, and earned a diploma in Horticulture from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew UK.
Dr. Shannon D. Fehlberg is the Dorrance Family Foundation Conservation Biologist. She received her Master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Colorado and conducted postdoctoral research at Kansas State University. She has long been interested in the plants of the southwestern deserts, including Carnegiea gigantea (saguaro; Cactaceae – the cactus family), Encelia farinosa (brittlebush; Asteraceae – the sunflower family), and Phlox (Polemoniaceae). In her research, she uses genetic and ecological tools to study rare plant populations and the processes that affected them in the past and may affect them in the future. She is particularly interested in the role of geography, climate, isolation, migration, hybridization and genome duplication in the formation, distribution and evolution of rare plant species in the southwestern deserts.
Wendy Hodgson is the Director of the Herbarium and Sr. Research Botanist, with research staff and volunteers, is involved in floristic surveys and documentation of plants in the Southwest and northern Mexico. Areas include the 800-mile Arizona Trail, Grand Canyon National Park and Agua Fria National Monument, Arizona, Baja, California and northern Sonora, Mexico. She is continuing systematic and ethnobotanical studies of the genera Agave and Yucca, including pre-Columbian agave cultivation. Her book, Food Plants of the Sonoran Desert (2001, University of Arizona Press) won the 2002 Klingler Book Award, presented by the Society of Economic Botany.
Matthew King is a research assistant, and has been with the Desert Botanical Garden since 2008. His current projects include assisting Dr. McAuliffe with a post-fire ecological study at Agua Fria National Monument, and collecting native seed populations for the Seeds of Success program. He received his B.S. in Environmental Science and Ecology from Arizona State University, where he also assisted various ecological research.
Dr. Joe McAuliffe, Director of Research, has been with the Desert Botanical Garden since 1990 as a Research Ecologist. His current research focuses on plant-soil relationships in desert regions of the American Southwest. On-going projects include the study of long-lived creosotebush clones in the Mojave Desert of California, landscape and vegetation changes in the Painted Desert region on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, and the ecology and conservation of desert grasslands in southern Arizona. In 1995, Dr. McAuliffe received the W.S. Cooper Award from the Ecological Society of America for his research contributions in plant ecology.
Dr. Kimberlie McCue, Program Director, Conservation of Threatened Species and Habitats, joined the Research Staff of Desert Botanical Garden in January 2010. Kim brings a diverse background in conservation science research and education to her new position. During an eight-year tenure with Missouri Botanical Garden her research included questions in plant and population biology, ecology, and genetics, as well as work in restoration/reintroduction of rare plant species. Most recently, she served as Instructor and Faculty Chair for a unique program, the School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt University, serving outstanding science and math students from the Nashville public schools. In her role at DBG Kim will be working to create a comprehensive conservation program that will position the garden as a leader in plant conservation in the desert region and beyond.
Raul Puente-Martinez is the Curator of Living Collections and is responsible for maintaining the database of the Living Collection at the Desert Botanical Garden. His main research interest has been the taxonomic study of the genus Opuntia (prickly-pears) in Mexico, particularly in the state of San Luis Potosi. He is currently working on a taxonomic revision of the genus Nopalea, a group of tropical prickly-pears which are pollinated by hummingbirds. His studies are based on extensive fieldwork as well as morphological characters, chromosome numbers and pollen morphology. He has been a collaborator for the Vascular Plants of Arizona project and has written various family treatments as well as done illustrations for the same project. 
Dr. Andrew Salywon is Assistant Herbarium Curator, and received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in Plant Biology and conducted postdoctoral research on developing Lesquerella as a new industrial oilseed crop at the United States Department of Agriculture, Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center. His research interests are in conservation, endemic and rare and endangered plants in Arizona and the Sonoran Desert, floristics, new crop development, and systematics using both traditional and molecular data. On-going projects include the Flora of Agua Fria National Monument, evolution and inheritance of hydroxy fatty acids in Lesquerella (Brassicaceae – the mustard family), systematics of native and cultivated Agave (Agaveaceae) in Arizona, Cylindropuntia (Cactaceae – the cactus family) and Mosiera (Myrtaceae - the myrtle family).
