Stefano Boeri

Stefano Boeri, architect and urban planner, is Full Professor at Politecnico di Milano. In Shanghai he is Director of the Future City Lab at Tongji University: a post-doctoral research program which explores the future of contemporary metropolis under the perspectives of biodiversity and urban forestry.

Stefano Boeri’s work ranges from the design of architecture and urban visions to product design, with a constant focus on the geopolitical and environmental implications of urban phenomena.
The attention to the relationship between city and living nature, leads in 2014 to the realization of the Bosco Verticale in Milan, the first prototype of residential building hosting 800 trees and 20,000 plants, an international model for green architecture.

Among the main players in the debate on climate change in the field of international architecture, in November 2018 he was Co-Chair of the Scientific Committee for the first World Forum on Urban Forests (Mantua, 2019). In 2019 he presented in New York the Green Urban Oases project, developed with FAO, C40, UN Habitat e other international research organizations, on occasion of the UN Climate Action Summit 2019.

From 2011 to 2013 he was Councillor for Culture at the Municipality in Milan. In 2018 he has been appointed President of Triennale Milano. Since 2020, Stefano Boeri is President of the Scientific Committee of Forestami, the project aimed at planting 3 million trees in Milan metropolitan area within 2030.

Paloma Cariñanos

Paloma Cariñanos is a Professor of Botany at University of Granada, Spain. She has been involved with teaching Green Infrastructure and Urban Forestry for many years, and participated in various European initiatives related to Urban Green Infrastructure.

Her research is focused on the evaluation of services and disservices provided by urban forests, with special emphasis on those that have an impact on health. She is coordinator of FAO´s SilvaMediterranea WG on urban and periurban forestry since 2020.

Wendy Y. Chen

Wendy Y. Chen is an associate professor of Department of Geography, serving as the director of International Centre for China Development Studies, at The University of Hong Kong.

She currently is the Editor-in-Chief for Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, a top international journal in the field of urban forest design and management. She also serves as the deputy coordinator for Urban Forestry Unit under the International Union of Forest Research Organisations, and the Executive Board Member of Urban Forest Division, Chinese Society of Forestry.

Dr. Chen’s research focuses on urban forestry, urban green-blue infrastructure restoration, environmental externality of urban planning and urban landscape design, urban environmental governance and environmental policies, as well as urban sustainability.

Cynnamon Dobbs

Cynnamon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at University of Connecticut, USA. She is involved in research and teaching on green infrastructure, urban forestry and nature-based solution. Her expertise lays on the assessment of ecosystem services from urban forests with a socio-ecological approach for understanding the patterns existing under different urban contexts and the drivers related to it. Lately her research has more focus on the development of indicators and on establishing evidence between nature exposure and health and wellbeing and governance around urban forestry.

Gareth Doherty

Gareth Doherty ASLA, an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, is the Director of the GSD’s Master in Landscape Architecture program and the Critical Landscapes Design Lab. Doherty’s research and teaching explore human-centered issues alongside environmental and aesthetic concerns through a human ecology framework.

Doherty is currently completing a book, Landscape Fieldwork, that explores the modes and potentials of an ethnographic approach to landscape architectural research and practice. Doherty's previous book, Paradoxes of Green: Landscapes of a City-State (University of California Press, 2017), shows how a landscape fieldwork process can allow new concepts for the study of landscape to emerge.

Doherty has edited and co-edited several books, including Roberto Burle Marx Lectures: Landscape as Art and Urbanism (Lars Müller Publishers, 2018, reprinted 2020); Is Landscape...? Essays on the Identity of Landscape, edited with Charles Waldheim (Routledge, 2015, and China Architecture and Building Press, 2019) and Ecological Urbanism edited with Mohsen Mostafavi (Lars Müller Publishers, 2010, revised 2016), which has been translated into five languages.

Francisco Escobedo

Francisco Escobedo is a Research Scientist with the USDA Forest Service-Pacific Southwest Research Station and the Los Angeles Center for Urban and Natural Resources Sustainability. 

His research focuses on the environmental sustainability and resilience of communities and ecosystems in urban peri-urban forests as well as measuring and informing the public about the benefits and costs of urban forests and how socioeconomic factors and policies drive changes to these ecosystems.

Most recently he was a Professor of Socio-ecological Systems at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogota, Colombia (2016-2020) and an Associate Professor of Urban and Community Forestry at the University of Florida (2006-2015).  He has a PhD in Forest Policy from State University of New York-ESF (USA), an MS in Watershed Management from the University of Arizona (USA), and a BS from New Mexico State University. 

Cassandra Johnson Gaither

Cassandra Johnson Gaither is a Research Social Scientist with the Southern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, in Athens, GA. Her research interests address human perceptions and interactions with nature and the environment. She has published research addressing social group visitation to wild land recreation areas, environmental justice as this relates to minority and lower wealth group access to outdoor recreation facilities. Her work currently focuses on the intersection of property ownership and social vulnerability in the South and the implications of the same for national forest management.

Johanna Gibbons

Johanna Gibbons is a Landscape Architect. She is a Royal Designer of Industry, Fellow of the Landscape Institute, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Commissioner with the Jersey Architectural Commission. Jo trained in Landscape Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art and is Founding Partner of J & L Gibbons established in 1986.

She is also founding Director of Landscape Learn, a social enterprise established in 2016 to advance a wider understanding and appreciation about the landscapes we design, inhabit and influence. Johanna is a member of various advisory panels including Historic England’s Historic Places Panel and the Forestry Commission’s Forestry and Woodland Advisory Committee.

She is a Trustee of Open City, a charity promoting people-centred cities and a core Research Partner of Urban Mind, a cross-disciplinary project lead by Kings College London with independent art foundation Nomad Projects, exploring how the urban environment affects mental wellbeing. She advocates for the profession on an international stage, lectures widely and has published several research publications, most recently, “Conversations on Urban Forestry”.

Jo was nominated Royal Designer of Industry by the RSA for her ‘pioneering and influential work combining design with activism, education and professional practice’.

Karin Helms

Karin Helms is a Landscape architect, she has been appointed Professor in 2020 at the Oslo school of Architecture and Design AHO. Before she was associate Professor at ENSP Versailles, Head of the Design department (1999 to 2014) and later Deputy Dean of the International affairs (2017-2020). She set up a European Master EMiLA www.emila.eu with five leading schools/Universities in Europe: ETSAB Barcelona, LUH Hannover, ESALA/ECA University of Scotland, AHK Academy of Amsterdam and ENSP Versailles which is the leading school of the curriculum. The main aim is to educate the future generation of Landscape architects on transborder landscape topics, on anticipatory transformations and cross-cultural landscape policies. Karin Helms was the originator and founder of this curriculum for which she received a National prize “Chevalier des Palmes academiques” French Order of Chivalry for academic, cultural and education figures Ministry of Higher Education.

She was State Landscape architect advisor during 20 years, latest for the region Upper Normandy where she worked on large-scale projects as urban expansion thematic, renewable energy and infrastructure integrations.

 She studies biology in Milan, landscape architecture at Gembloux’ school and by ENSP Versailles. In 2019, she gained her PhD by practice by the School of Architecture and Design RMIT. She received more prizes and grants as the EU Marie Sklodowska-Curie research grant through the ADAPT-r programme.

She is involved since long time in association for the promotion of the profession and education in landscape architecture – Since 2019 she is President of IFLA Europe.

Her research includes “Landscape urbanism” and “Large-scale Landscape transformations”.

Cecil Konijnendijk

Cecil Konijnendijk has over 25 years of experience studying, teaching, and advising on aspects of urban forestry and nature-based solutions. He is widely considered as one of the world’s leading urban forestry experts, and his work has been featured by leading media outlets such as CNBC and in international documentary films.

A Dutch national, he has lived and worked in Europe, Asia, and North America. Since 2016 he has been a professor of urban forestry at the University of ritish Columbia. Cecil helped found the leading academic journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, and edited seminal textbooks such as The Routledge Handbook of Urban Forestry. He is currently Editor-in-chief of Arboriculture and Urban Forestry, the scientific journal of the International Society of Arboriculture.

Cecil is passionate about using trees and nature to develop better cities, and always stresses the importance of building meaningful relationships between people and places. He has advised international organisations such as FAO, as well as national and local governments in more than 30 countries, and was an invited panellist at the 8th Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe in April 2021. From his current home city of Barcelona Cecil co-directs the Nature Based Solutions Institute, a think tank that supports the evidence-based greening of cities across the world.

Stephen Livesley

Stephen Livesley has researched forest systems for more than 25 years, from tropical agroforestry systems, Australian savannas, eucalypt plantations and more recently trees and green spaces in our towns and cities. Since 2010, Stephen has focussed his research on quantifying and modelling the ecosystem services and biodiversity benefits provided by urban forests. Stephen leads urban forest research at The University of Melbourne, Australia as part of the Green Infrastructure Research Group. He is one of the world’s eminent urban forest researchers, having published extensively and fostering international collaborations. He works closely with local governments and industry within Australia to ensure his research is applied and has impact for society and environmental benefit. Stephen believes that a scientific evidence-base is essential for the role of urban forests to be front and centre of future urban planning and climate change adaptation actions.

Josephine Malonza

Josephine Malonza is an enthusiastic and curious architect and urban designer keen on the dialectical relations between Architecture, urban design and Society. Her research focuses on public space and urban sustainability. The empathic engagement with urban citizens, through participatory processes, makes her particularly passionate about quality of life in urban areas, and has seen her work widely published.

She is the founding dean, of the School of Architecture and Built Environment, in the University of Rwanda, where she has been substantially involved in teaching, research and community engagement for the last fourteen years. Her work is inspired by the unique concept of cultivating learning environments that are participatory, reflective, action-focused and change-oriented.

She has received numerous awards including the RIBA Scott Brownrigg Award for Sustainable Development in 2022. She has been involved in international research collaborations with the Centre for Sustainable Healthy and Learning Cities (SHLC), Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures (TESF), Gendered Journeys Project and the Belmont Forum. She is also a mentor to women in STEM.

She serves as an advisory committee member for Green Cities Region Action Programme for Africa (GC-RAPA) as well as the Africa Forum on Urban Forests (AFUF). She is a member of the Technical advisory Group and housing committee at the city of Kigali as well as urbanization sector working group member at the ministry of infrastructure in Rwanda.

Robert McDonald

Robert McDonald is Lead Scientist for Nature-Based Solutions at The Nature Conservancy. He researches the impact and dependencies of communities on the natural world, studying how nature can increase resilience in the face of climate change and improve human health and well-being. He holds a PhD in Ecology from Duke University and has published more than 100 scientific publications and two books. Prior to joining the Conservancy, he was a Smith Conservation Biology Fellow at Harvard University, studying the impact global urban growth will have on biodiversity and conservation. He also taught landscape ecology at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, helping architects and planners incorporate ecological principles into their projects.

Maria Chiara Pastore

Maria Chiara Pastore is Tenured track researcher at the Politecnico di Milano.  She obtained a PhD in Spatial Planning and urban Development at Politecnico di Milano, and her research interests are mainly focused on Urban Forestry, water and sanitation in relation to city’s development, adaptive planning in relation to rapid growing cities. She is PI of the National Project funded by MUR, the “National Biodiversity Future Center – NBFC” specifically on urban Biodiversity (2022-2026). Her recent work includes an improved green system in the Greater Milan 2030, Forestami (Milano 2030), the Urban Forestry plan in Prato, Italy, the "Safer house construction guidelines" for the Malawi Ministry of Housing (GFDRR), the “Master plan for the City of Dar es Salaam” for the Tanzania Ministry of Lands Housing Human Settlements Development. She is collaborating with FAO on urban forestry and food policies projects. She has been a consultant to the World Bank, member of the scientific committee of the First World Forum on Urban Forests, visiting professor at TU Graz. In 2018 she published the book “Reinterpreting the relationship between water and Urban Planning. The case of Dar es Salaam”, with Routledge.

Anand Persad

Anand Persad is the director of the Research, Science, and Innovation (RSI) team at ACRT Services. He chairs the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) Science and Research Committee (SRC). Additionally, he serves as Research Committee Chairperson for the Utility Arborist Association (UAA).

Dr. Persad collaborates with a global network of researchers and governments on arboricultural and environmental research including climate resilient urban and utility-based tree programs, biodiversity analyses, invasive species, and tree biomechanics.

Dr. Persad has received the ISA L.C. Chadwick Award and the Award of Achievement by the Ohio Chapter of the ISA. These awards recognize arboricultural research excellence and commitment to industry innovation.

He holds a Ph.D. in invertebrate ecology/entomology from the University of the West Indies. His post-doctorate at University of Florida emphasized invasive species and insect molecular genetics.

Tan Puay Yok

Tan Puay Yok is a Dean’s Chair Associate Professor and cluster leader of the Landscape Studies group at the Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore. His research, teaching, and professional activities focus on the science, policies, and practices of urban greening and ecology of the built environment. He combines his background in the sciences, experience in urban governance from the public sector, and interactions with practitioners to apply knowledge for urban greening to improve environmental quality and societal well-being. He leads the Urban Ecology Lab@SDE: https://blog.nus.edu.sg/tanlab/). He is the Co-Editor-in-Chief for Landscape and Urban Planning (Elsevier).

Phillip Rodbell

Phillip Rodbell is national lead for urban forest sustainability research at the USDA Forest Service where he supports a network of 50+ scientists studying the social, economic, and ecological impacts of trees and forests where people live, work, and recreate. Previously, he served as urban forest program lead for the agency’s Eastern Region, supporting federally funded action to plant and improve community trees and forests in the Midwest, New England, and Mid-Atlantic areas of the United States.

He has 35 years of experience in federal program management, nonprofit action, state program administration, and local government consulting, including three years of international experience with the U.S. Peace Corps in Honduras, Central America. Phillip is a Certified Arborist and has a M.S. in Forestry from North Carolina State University and a B.S. in Forest Resources from the University of Washington in Seattle.

Fabio Salbitano

PhD in Forest Ecology, Fabio Salbitano is professor at the University of Florence, teaching urban and landscape ecology, silviculture, and forest and landscape restoration. He is scientific coordinator of the MSc in Landscape Design and board member of the PhD in Sustainability and Innovation in urban design at UNIFI. Fabio researched on forest, health, and wellbeing, landscape ecology and history, ecosystem restoration, strategic planning and community engagement, wildfire ecology and risk assessment. 

Fabio is passionated of forests and landscape and tried to His latest research concerns nature- and landscape-based solutions and ecosystem restoration in drylands. He is research unit coordinator of H2020 CONEXUS project on co-creating and co-designing nature-based solution in Latin American and European cities. He developed research projects on urban forests and landscape ecology in Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Fabio was also involved in supporting the organization and the learning processes worldwide, in several training courses both at the level of community capacity building as well as in postgraduate training of technical staff and practitioners concerning environmental impact assessment, fire and landscape ecology, forest landscape design and management, habitat keeping, sustainable agroforestry and agriculture practices. Since 2001, he is actively involved in FAO Urban and Peri-Urban Forestry programs and co-organized the World Forum on Urban Forests in 2018. Delegate of the University of Florence at UNISCAPE, he is vice-chair of SILVA MEDITERRANEA, statutory body of FAO.

Jessica Sanders

Jessica serves as the Executive Director of the Sacramento Tree Foundation. She has a doctorate from Rutgers University and is a certified Project Management Professional. Jessica has a passion for the urban forest, and her research has focused on developing and enhancing current urban forestry practices in order to better manage the urban interface. Growing up in New Jersey and spending her college years walking through Atlantic white cedar bogs, she wanted nature to be a daily experience, not a destination. Jessica has worked at the intersection of science communication and creation of long-lasting urban forestry policy. She served as the chair of the Conference Program Committee, the chair of the Nominations and Elections Committee for the International Society of Arboriculture as well as a member of the Science and Research Committee. She was a board member for the Mid-Atlantic Chapter (MAC) of ISA and has served as President of ISA-AREA. She fell in love with the Sacramento Tree Foundation’s holistic vision of urban forestry and prioritizes the organization’s goal of urban forestry from seed to slab, creating and cultivating an equitable urban forest through education and stewardship of trees in the Sacramento region. She previously worked at Casey Trees as the Director of Science and Policy, overseeing community science, mapping, policy, partnerships, and land conservation.

Giuseppe E. Scarascia-Mugnozza

Giuseppe E. Scarascia-Mugnozza, born in Rome, September 5, 1954, graduated in Agricultural Sciences and then in Forest Science at the University of Bari (Italy), holds a PhD in Forest Ecology and Management from the University of Washington, Seattle (USA).
Full professor of Silviculture and Forest Ecophysiology of the University of Tuscia-Viterbo, he teaches Urban Forestry in the joint School on Landscape Architecture with the faculty of Architecture of the First Rome University-Sapienza.
GSM coordinates the project on Adaptation and mitigation of terrestrial ecosystems to climate change of the National Centre of Biodiversity and is a component of the Scientific Committee of the Presidency of Republic - Castelporziano Reserve.
He is Head of the Facility on BioCities and Urban Forests of the European Forest Institute, in Rome.
His research activity, with more than 250 scientific papers and books, has been conducted mainly on Mediterranean forest ecosystems and climate change impacts on trees and forests.

Alan Simson

Alan Simson is a landscape architect, an urban forester and an urban designer, and is known as an urban spaceman by his colleagues. He is Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture and Urban Forestry at Leeds Beckett University in the UK, where he is still involved in teaching, research and innovative practice, the latter mainly with local authorities in the Leeds City Region. Prior to working in academia, he worked for Telford New Town where, amongst other design responsibilities, he ran the Afforestation Programme for over 10 years, planting over 6.5 million trees of 138 different species. Subsequently he was a partner in several private practices, including his own, before joining the then Leeds Metropolitan University as a senior lecturer.

He rapidly rose to be a course leader, a Reader, a Professor and became Director of Research for the Department of Architecture and Landscape. This involved him in working with colleagues in Europe and beyond and he has been involved in several of the EU’s COST Actions associated with urban forestry/urban greening. He led COST Action E12 Urban Forests and Trees on behalf of the UK.

He is a Member of the Steering Group of the European Forum on Urban Forestry, has worked / presented at conferences and events in 32 countries and has published many papers and chapters in books on urban forestry, viable urban futures, etc.

In the UK, he is the Chair of the White Rose Community Forest, the largest community forest in the UK, is a Board Member/Trustee of both the Arboricultural Association and the Community Forest Trust and is the Tree Advisor for the Diocese of Leeds, the largest diocese in the country.

Jessica Thorn

Jessica Thorn has 15 years’ experience as advising, studying, and teaching natural climate adaptation, mitigation and conservation, the sustainability of mega infrastructure and green infrastructure in peri urban, smallholder and mountain systems. Hailing from Namibia, her work is focuses on Africa and Asia. She has worked on various ESRC, IDRC, GCRF, CR4D, NSF, NERC, NRF, DFID, CGAIR, IDRC, ESRC, UNEP, UNDP, and USAID funded projects, advising international organizations such as the UN, World Bank, governments, NGOs, working closely with local stakeholders across sectors. As a lecturer in the School of Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of St Andrews, she teaches university courses on nature-based solutions and participatory scenario planning, supervising PhD and MSc students. Jessica has contributed to IPCC, Global Environmental Outlook 6 and The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity reports, is an editor for the scientific journals of PloSClimate, and Plants, People, Planet, and a Springer Nature book series on urban ecosystems and the SDGs. Her work has been featured in leading media outlooks, such as The Conversation Africa, animations, and film documentaries. Prior to St Andrews, she completed her BSocSci(Hons) (human geography) at the University of Cape Town, MSc (Environmental change) and DPhil (Zoology) at Oxford, postdoctoral studies at Colorado State University, University of York and ETH Zurich and held a fellowship at the African Climate and Development Initiative.

Cheng Wang

Cheng Wang is a Professor, Chief Scientist, and Executive Deputy Director of Urban Forest Research Center of State Forestry Administration, P.R. China. He is mainly engaged in urban forest planning, urban forest biodiversity and urban forest ecosystem services.

He has hosted a number of national urban forestry research programs. Prof. Wang has published more than 150 papers and 2 books including “Afforestation in Beijing Plain Area: Strategies, Practices and Assessments” and “Urban Phytogenic Pollution: Sources, Processes and Controls”.

He is now playing a leading role in promoting state-of-the-art urban forest research as well as forest city practices in China.

Kathleen Wolf

Kathleen Wolf is a Research Social Scientist (retired, affiliate) at the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington (USA). Following early career positions as a biologist, environmental planner and landscape architect she completed her Ph.D. at the University of Michigan (USA). She then implemented a multi-decade research program at the University of Washington (USA) to investigate human response to outdoor spaces in cities, using theory and methods of environmental psychology. She was also a research associate with the U.S. Forest Service collaborating on studies of social dimensions of urban forestry and ecosystems. Dr. Wolf's mission is to discover, understand and communicate human behavior and benefits, as people experience nature in cities and towns. Her research has spanned multiple disciplines and collaborations. She is/has served with national and international organizations that promote nature-based health and quality of life in cities. Kathy enjoys working with people representing different interests and disciplines, as effective solutions for the challenges of cities and natural resources come from the insights of multiple perspectives. Her work has spanned multiple scientific and professional disciplines; publications include journals focusing on urban forestry, psychology, transportation, urban planning, retail marketing and public health. Kathy is committed to science translation and outreach and actively shares research at  www.naturewithin.info; and the Green Cities: Good Health project at: www.greenhealth.washington.edu