John Richard 'Rick' Stepp is an anthropologist and ethnobiologist who currently holds the position of UF Research Foundation Professor at the University of Florida.
Stepp was previously the G. P. Wilder Professor of Botany at the University of Hawaii.
[1] Stepp studied ecology at the Universities of Florida and Georgia under the tutelage of Howard T. Odum, Eugene P. Odum, Frank Golley and Bernard Patten.
His PhD advisor in ecological anthropology was Brent Berlin.
He has also been involved in research on the importance of weeds as medicinal plants for indigenous peoples.