James Eckenwalder was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France in 1949. He studied at
Reed College in
Portland, Oregon, where he graduated with a BA in 1971. He completed his doctoral thesis
Systematics of Populus
L. (Salicaceae) in southwestern North America with special reference to sect. Aigeros
Duby at the University of California at Berkeley and obtained his Ph.D. in 1977. During this time he was a research assistant at the
Jepson Herbarium. He started his university career at the
Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden Research Center in
Miami, Florida, but after just one year he moved to the
University of Toronto as an assistant professor. Since 1979, he has also been a research fellow at the
Royal Ontario Museum. In 1985, he became an associate professor in the Department of Botany at the University of Toronto. His field studies have taken him to vast areas of the United States and Canada, the West Indies, Central America, South America, and Europe. == References ==