Cindy Ott first began to explore the cultural history of pumpkins while working at a friend's fall pumpkin stand in suburban Maryland. As much as she is interested in working in the fields and interviewing farmers and pumpkin festival operators, she is also interested in working in libraries and archives to understand the history of such phenomena. In all of her projects, she looks at how people rely on history and nature to create traditions and the impacts of those traditions on the world around them. Cindy is an Associate Professor in the American Studies Department at Saint Louis University. Her research and teaching interests have been strongly influenced by her work as a museum curator and public historian. She has organized cultural history projects and art exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution, community development and urban revitalization programs at the University of Pennsylvania and Saint Louis University, and historic preservation projects at the National Park Service. She has also built alliances and partnerships between academia and nonprofit environmental groups as the communications director of Rachel's Network, a women's environmental organization. Cindy is currently a consultant for the National Park Service, assisting national parks to develop or enhance their history programs. She is also the graphics editor of the journal Environmental History and a regular grant review panelist for the National Endowment for the Humanities.