Tinde R. van Andel trained as a tropical ecologist at the University of Amsterdam. After her master’s thesis on swamp vegetation in the Colombian Amazon, she studied nontimber forest products for her PhD at Utrecht University. After two postdocs on medicinal and ritual plant use in Suriname and western Africa at Utrecht and Leiden University, she became Naturalis Special Professor in Ethnobotany at Wageningen University. E-mail: tinde.vanandel@naturalis.nl.