Jan Johnsen is a principal of the award-winning Johnsen Landscapes & Pools in New York, and an admired garden designer and author. She was the 2019 recipient of the prestigious ‘Award of Distinction' from the Association of Professional Landscape Designers. Her firm’s website is www.johnsenlandscapes.com

Trained in landscape architecture and professional horticulture, Jan has worked in Japan, Hawaii, and Kenya, among other places. She is an inspiring and popular speaker and loves to show how you can “co-create with nature” in your backyard.

She taught at Columbia University for many years and still teaches at the New York Botanical Garden where she was named “Instructor of the Year”. Jan wrote ‘All About Trees’ and has followed that up with several other books. Her 2021 book, Floratopia – 110 Flower Garden Ideas for Your Yard, Patio or Balcony, (Countryman Press, an imprint of W.W. Norton) joins Gardentopia, Heaven is a Garden and The Spirit of Stone.

Dr. David Bengston is an Environmental Futurist and Social Scientist with the Strategic Foresight Group of the Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, and is located in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is also an adjunct faculty member at the University of Minnesota where he teaches a seminar on environmental futures. Dr. Bengston has published more than 160 research publications, including papers in the Journal of Futures Research, World Futures Review, Futures, and The Futurist. He was the Chair of the North American Forest Commission’s Foresight Working Group and is a member of the World Futures Studies Federation and the Association of Professional Futurists.

Dr. Bengston has worked as a consultant to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations Development Programme, and the International Union of Forestry Research Organization’s (IUFRO) Special Programme for Developing Countries. He was the Coordinator of the IUFRO Ecological Economics in Forestry Working Group and was an OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development) Research Fellow at Seoul National University in South Korea in 2004. In the summer of 2022, he will be a visiting Fulbright scholar at the University of Eastern Finland.

Nate Shampine, CERP, is Mt. Cuba Center’s Natural Lands Manager responsible for implementing land conservation practices and developing healthy and functional ecosystems. He is a graduate of SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and is a Certified Ecological Restoration Practitioner through the Society for Ecological Restoration. He is an adjunct professor at Temple University where he teaches Landscape Restoration to undergraduate and graduate students. He is also a certified wildland firefighter and recently traveled to Arizona and California to assist with wildfire efforts.

Brian “BK” Koehler has been the director of the Park Maintenance Institute since early 2020. BK holds degrees in Business Administration (BS), Parks and Recreation Administration (BS), and Experiential Education (MS). He is an experienced facilitator and event professional with an extensive background in teambuilding, ropes course / climbing tower construction, and outdoor adventure leadership.

Before joining the Park Maintenance Institute, BK was based in Hong Kong through 2015 as an experiential educator, producer, and entrepreneur. Upon his stateside return, BK stepped into operations and facility management of the Student Union and Recreation Center at Central Washington University.

BK is a native Pennsylvanian, but self-proclaimed “global citizen.” He is motivated by a thirst for experience, and driven by a desire to engage leaders that impact society. He believes in the power of positive energy, an innovative mindset, and servant leadership. In his free time, BK enjoys gardening and playing disc golf.

Linda Langelo is a Colorado State University Extension, Horticulture Agent. The five counties under her care are in Northeast Colorado. In 2020, a 100-year event called a derecho devastated the small towns of Akron and Haxtun. To help in the recovery of these towns, she sought to partner with the Colorado Forest Service Regional Education Coordinator, Donna Davis, and was able to secure funding from Colorado Tree Coalition (CTC) to reforest these communities.

She received her Master’s Degree in Education Administration from Salisbury State University in Salisbury, Maryland. Graduated from the Horticulture Program at Longwood Gardens after graduating from Cabrini College with a degree in English Communications, with a minor in Biology and Botany. She was a member of the Tri-Beta Honor Society. In July 2021, she was the recipient of the Lois Woodward Paul Memorial Award.

During her 40 years in horticulture, she has both implemented arboretums and overseen them. As Assistant Director of Horticulture at Salisbury State University, she helped implement a campus-wide arboretum still going strong today. She went on to be Director at Adkins Arboretum early in its implementation increasing its exposure in the local and surrounding communities and as a member of the American Public Garden Association.

Currently, she writes a monthly column called the Relentless Gardener and has a Facebook Page titled Garden the Plains, and has a book awaiting publisher’s approval called “Plants Are Speaking. Are You Listening?”

Melissa Custic manages the Chicago Region Trees Initiative (CRTI). The CRTI is a collaboration of regional partners working together to improve the health, diversity, and equity of trees in the seven-county Chicago Region. Melissa works closely with colleagues of partner institutions to increase canopy cover, reduce the presence of invasive species, and works to increase the preservation of oak ecosystems in the Chicago Region. She has developed several resources and training programs aimed at improving tree selection, planting, and care, as well as targeting invasive woody removal and replacement. Melissa’s professional interests include urban forestry, urban ecology, environmental justice, tree care, climate change, and soil ecology. Melissa is also an ISA-certified arborist.

Amber Grant is a Ph.D. Candidate (ABD) in the Environmental Applied Science and Management program at X* University (formerly known as Ryerson University). Her doctoral research focuses on examining environmental justice in urban forest management and decision-making in the United States. Most recently, Amber has been working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to investigate how environmental justice is being pursued and implemented in community tree-planting programs and practice. Amber has also worked with Dr. Andrew Millward and his Urban Forest Research and Ecological Disturbance Group for the last seven years conducting interdisciplinary research regarding urban forest function, ecological change, and human interactions with urban nature.

William Fuchs is the Head Gardener at Andalusia Historic House, Gardens, and Arboretum. William has worked in several positions at Andalusia over the last 22 years including 14 years as the Head Gardener. William came to Andalusia as an intern in 1998 while finishing his Bachelor of Science degree in Horticulture at Temple University, Ambler campus. Before attending Temple, William received his Associate Applied Science degree in Ornamental Horticulture from Cumberland Community College. William’s interest in horticulture and gardening has been lifelong, working in various positions in the industry for over 30 years including the 7 years William managed his own design, install, and maintenance landscape company. William grew up on a small farm where a variety of crops were raised for farmer’s market stands as a side business. William is glad to be a part of this incredible community that helps promote a better place to live by planting beautiful trees and gardens.

Mohamed M. Hassona is the Head Horticulturist at the Qur'anic Botanic Garden, the Qatar Foundation in Ar-Rayyan, Qatar.

Hassona joined the Foundation in late 2010 to provide comprehensive horticultural support, direction, and expertise to initiate activities related to the development of the Qur'anic Botanic Garden’s initiatives on agriculture, horticulture, nursery production, and tree management. With over 17-years of dynamic hands-on experience in horticulture, Hassona is responsible for all the plants in both the open spaces and greenhouses at the garden. He also manages all propagation while overseeing the curatorial information for all plants and trees.

Hassona also manages all agricultural staff including coordinating work schedules and staff evaluations.

Hassona has a master’s degree in science in Sustainable Agriculture & the Environment and a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture Sciences & Education from his university in Egypt. Hassona is an alum of the Advanced International Training Programme on Plant Breeding & Seed Production and Plant Genetic Resources from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

He also contributes to the ongoing education-based conservation programs targeting the community, for food security, reforestation, and plant propagation.

Josh Behounek is the Business Development Manager with Davey Resource Group. Josh started his career as an inventory arborist working on many large-scale street tree inventories across the country. He then transferred to a Davey Residential and Commercial office in northwest Chicago, where he spent four years performing plant health care and climbing trees. In 2006, Josh transferred back to DRG, where he now leads business development activities across the country for the Environmental Consulting team. He is most passionate about helping clients proactively and sustainably manage their environmental ecosystems.

As a presenter, he has done over 100 presentations at international, national, and regional conferences and workshops. Josh is an ISA Certified Arborist ® Municipal Specialist, and is Tree Risk Assessment Qualified (TRAQ), Josh graduated with a bachelor’s degree in forestry resource management from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. As a frequent business and pleasure traveler Josh has hugged over a dozen national champion trees and is always on the lookout for another one.

Katie Dubow is president at Garden Media Group, a women-owned and run public relations firm specializing in the home and garden industry. Author of the annual Garden Trends Report, Dubow travels the world scouting and presenting garden trends to audiences from Italy to Chicago.

Dubow is a guest host on QVC for Cottage Farms, judge at the Philadelphia Flower Show, the inaugural recipient of the Emergent Communicator Award from the Association of Garden Writers, vice-chair of the Pennsylvania Landscape and Nursery Association, and an awarded member of the 2018 Forty Under 40 from Greenhouse Product News.

Previously, she worked at CBS Studios in New York City and was a public relations & marketing manager at Monet Jewelry. Katie received a degree in communications from Northeastern University where she was also a Division I rower on the crew team.

Dubow lives and gardens in West Chester, PA with her husband, two daughters, one dog, and six chickens. Find her in the garden with her children, practicing yoga or dancing to Zumba. Her goal is to convince people that brown thumbs can, in fact, be turned green.

Follow along @KatieGMG and on Facebook at KatieGardenGirl

Jason Lubar has been employed at Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania as the Associate Director of Urban Forestry for over twenty years. His career has focused on educating a wide audience about trees and natural resources. He teaches professional-level arboricultural courses, presents at international conferences, and supports Morris Arboretum’s educational mission by providing a wide-range of tree-related consulting services to a diversity of clients including design firms, arborists, townships and municipalities, schools, and corporations.

We have invited Jason back today in light of the recent tornados that have ravaged our Mid-Atlantic Region. This podcast is dedicated to the aftercare of trees from tornado and derecho damage.

Tom Knezick is the General Manager of Pinelands Nursery & Supply. He became interested in the agricultural and the nursery industry as a child when he planted his first pussy willow at age 2. As 2nd generation nurseryman, his parents Don & Suzanne Knezick started the nursery in 1984. Tom’s primary focus is bringing a business-minded approach to growing, selling, and marketing native plants.

Pinelands Nursery is proud to supply local ecotype trees, shrubs, grasses, forbs & seeds to the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast grown from wild-collected seed. Most of the plants they grow are planted in ecological restoration projects from Virginia to Massachusetts, creating landscapes that attract pollinators, curb climate change, prevent flooding, and create wildlife habitat.

Tom is a member of the New Jersey Nursery & Landscape Association Board of Directors, Atlantic Seed Association Executive Committee, and is Secretary of NJ Farm Bureau Young Farmers & Agriculture Professionals. He also operates an e-commerce garden center with his wife Melissa, and recently had his first child. Tom also hosts the Native Plants Healthy Planet Podcast.

Megan Barstow is the Conservation Officer at Botanic Gardens Conservation International. She began her career as a Global Tree Search Intern, compiling species lists of trees and their country-level distributions towards the publication of BGCI's GlobalTreeSearch Database before moving into a role as a Conservation Officer within BGCI. This new role led to her producing International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List Assessments for a variety of tree species including, Global Timber Species and assessments for species protected under CITES, which is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals. Also in her role at BGCI Megan works closely with partners in the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and Malaysia to complete the Global Tree Assessment. She is also an IUCN Red List Trainer. Her special interest is to make assessments for the plant family Dipterocarpaceae which contains high valued trees for timber in Asia. Her work contributed to the State of the World's Trees report, for which she jointly led the communications of the report. Megan studied at the University of Bath in biology and her placement year was spent at Kew's Millennium Seed Bank.

Neil Pederson is a Senior Ecologist at the Harvard Forest who studies the dynamics and long-term development of forests from individual trees to trees across regions and subcontinents. He is especially interested in the response of trees as they interact with climate and as they interact amongst themselves. Neil conducts basic and applied research to help develop ecologically-based, long-term forest management. He digs natural history, charismatic megaflora, and old-growth forests. Neil is also very curious about the growth, longevity, and ecology of broadleaf trees and forests.

Neil earned an associate degree in math while playing lacrosse at SUNY-Morrisville, received his bachelor’s degree from SUNY-College of Environmental Science & Forestry, and received a Master of Science from Auburn University studying an old bottomland hardwood forest in South Carolina. After a stint as a tree-ring technician assisting on climate change research in Mongolia and Russia at the Tree-Ring Laboratory of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, he earned a Ph.D. studying forest ecology and climate change along the eastern coast of the United States at Columbia University. Before becoming a senior ecologist in the Fall of 2014 at the Harvard Forest, Neil was an assistant professor in biology at Eastern Kentucky University and a research professor at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.

He currently has grants with the US Forest Service and National Science Foundation to study the impacts of extreme climate on the lives of trees in the Northeastern US and how climate might have shaped the old-growth forests we love today.

Jennifer Santoro is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment (GEV) at Villanova University, where she teaches courses in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Environmental Science. Jen is originally from northern New Jersey where she grew up learning about trees from her dad. She studied Environmental Science at Hamilton College and received both a Master of Forestry and Master of Environmental Management degrees from Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. Currently, she is finishing her Ph.D. in Natural Resources (Applied Forest Ecology) at the University of Vermont while she teaches at Villanova. Jen’s research focuses on spatial modeling of forest disturbances in the northeastern United States; she’s particularly interested in the long-term impacts of climate change and invasive pests on forest diversity. Jen strives to foster a love of maps and nature in her students, and she hopes her research will promote a greater understanding of the importance of trees and managing forests to be resilient in the face of climate change.

Allison Brown holds a Ph.D. in Botany from the University of California, Davis where her research focused on the significance of mycorrhizal fungi in tidal salt marshes. She has taught courses in Plant Pathology at Temple University – Ambler Campus and Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania and she is currently teaching Biology at Delaware Valley University. Fungi often take center stage in Allison’s lectures and have been the highlight for many guest presentations including those for Master Gardener programs, the New Jersey Mycological Association, and other mushroom clubs, as well as the American Chemical Society. Most recently Allison gave a presentation entitled “Villains in the Garden” for the ONE Symposium at Tyler Arboretum, where she introduced her audience to the parasitic fungi commonly associated with trees. Allison also leads mushroom hikes and enjoys exploring the culinary delights of local fungi.

Susan Downing Day is a Professor of Urban Forestry in the Department of Forest Resources Management at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and Program Director for the Bachelor of Urban Forestry. Susan’s research focuses on managing urban soils to enhance tree growth and longevity in the context of environmental challenges such as stormwater mitigation and land development impacts on soil-mediated ecosystem services. She helped shape the soils metrics for the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES®) international crediting system for sustainable design projects and developed Soil Profile Rebuilding, a rehabilitation technique to restore damaged urban soils in situ and enhance urban soil carbon storage. Her research in the water relations of tree-engineered soil systems and in partnership with the Chesapeake Bay Trust has informed stormwater policy in the Chesapeake Bay region of the United States. Susan also led Urban Forestry 2020, a research-based investigation into urban forestry career paths and education. Susan has published more than 130 articles and book chapters on urban forests and urban soils and is the 2017 recipient of the L.C. Chadwick Award for Arboricultural Research. Susan holds a B.A. from Yale University, an M.S. from Cornell University, and a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech.

Ari Miller is the director of design at Hinge Collective, a public interest design firm that puts community engagement and public participation at the forefront of their practice. As both a landscape architect and arborist, Ari has always advocated for the integration and restoration of natural systems in urban design. Over the course of his 17-year career, Ari has worked as an arborist at Morris Arboretum, as a green roof design specialist at Roofmeadow, and has also led large-scale civic design projects at OLIN Partners. At Hinge, he uses this experience to help communities find design solutions that best support human and ecological health in their own neighborhoods through the enhancement of public space and community-led planning. Ari has also been adjunct faculty at the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania and Jefferson University.