Ford, Richard I.

Richard Irving Ford was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on June 27, 1941, and raised in Livingston, New Jersey. He earned his bachelor's degree with high honors in anthropology from Oberlin College in 1963. Ford then attended the University of Michigan for graduate work in anthropology (MA, 1965, PhD, 1968), where he worked with influential American anthropologist James B. Griffin, and studied ethnobotany under the guidance of distinguished ethnobotanist Volney H. Jones.

Ford began his academic career as an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati (1967-1968). Following his work there, Ford embarked upon a long and distinguished career at the University of Michigan in the anthropology and botany departments, where he worked from 1969 until his retirement in 2007. Ford began his career at Michigan as an assistant professor, was promoted to associate professor in 1972, and earned the rank of full professor in 1977. In addition to his dual teaching appointments, Ford served as a faculty associate at the Institute for the Humanities and the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Over the course of his career, Ford also served as a visiting professor at numerous other institutions, including Utah State University (1981); University of Washington (1986); Kunming Institute of Botany in Xishunghanna, China (1987), Southern Methodist University (1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1999); and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in Mexico City, Mexico (1994).

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