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.

Bill Logan (William Bryant Logan) has spent the last five decades living with trees, as a writer, arborist, and teacher, first in coastal California and the Sierra Nevada, then for the last thirty years in the regenerating forests of New York. Logan is founder and president of the Brooklyn-based tree company Urban Arborists. His firm trains and cares for the pollards and aerial hedges in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has planned, planted, and currently cares for numerous landscapes and gardens at historic properties and urban parks in the Tri-State area. Logan lectures widely, from the Arnold Arboretum in Cambridge to the Huntington Library in Los Angeles and internationally, about the relationship between people and trees. He has won the True Professional of Arboriculture award from the International Society of Arboriculture and the Senior Scholar award from New York State Arborists.

His most recent book, Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees, has been awarded the 2021 John Burroughs Medal for distinguished nature writing. His essay “The Things Trees Know” was excerpted from Sprout Lands before the book’s publication and published in Orion. It won the 2020 John Burroughs Nature Essay Award. Logan’s earlier books are Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, Oak: The Frame of Civilization, and Air: The Restless Shaper of the World. Dirt inspired an award-winning documentary that was shown at the Sundance Film Festival. Oak was featured in a story on CBS Sunday Morning. Logan has written for the New York Times, Orion, Emergence, Natural History, House Beautiful, House & Garden, and many other publications, winning numerous Quill and Trowel Awards from the Garden Writers of America. He is on the faculty at the New York Botanical Garden and has taught poetry in the New York City schools and nature writing at Sarah Lawrence College.

Dr. Tony Kendle is a horticulturist, educator, and researcher. He is the co-author of Urban Nature Conservation: Landscape Management in the Urban Countryside and the new book A Wonder In the Garden. Both books review the importance of urban and garden biodiversity.

After working for a local government parks department, Tony studied horticulture at the University of Bath.

This lead to further study and research in the University of Liverpool’s Department of Botany and Ecology. Tony was awarded a Ph.D. on the reclamation of mine spoil and the creation of new woodlands on destroyed land. This was followed by several years working as an ecological consultant, which gave him experience in the restoration of many degraded sites, from coal mines to metal mines, deserts, and even the island of St Helena in the mid-Atlantic.

During this same time period, Tony also worked with Peter Thoday, horticultural teacher, and presenter of the Victorian Kitchen Garden on the BBC. Through joint consultancy, they produced management plans and tree surveys for heritage sites and healthcare properties.

Tony then moved to the University of Reading where for ten years he taught Horticulture and Landscape Management in the degree and postgraduate level programs. His additional experience includes being a visiting teacher at the Royal Agricultural College and the Kew School of Horticulture.

Tony’s former students have progressed to roles in many countries as greenspace managers, educators, and directors of organizations working on city greening and community health.

His combined experiences led Tony to a role as a member of the founding team for the globally famous Eden Project in Cornwall – a site recognized for “reconnecting humankind with the natural world.”

The Eden Project is a botanical garden that was established as part of the United Kingdom’s Millennium initiative of national inspirational projects. It was developed by the team that had earlier restored the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Rather than being a conservatory of rare plants, Eden has an educational charitable mission. The living collections demonstrate our daily dependence on plants and the places where they are grown for us. The living collections are not rarities but staples, even so, they are plants that few people ever get to see in person.

Tony now works for Eden’s new company, the Eden Project International which works on developments throughout the United Kingdom and around the world.

Pandora Young is a Senior Horticulturist working in Longwood Garden's Outdoor Landscapes since 2005. The areas under her care are Peirce’s Park, a historic arboretum dating back to 1798, and Peirce’s Woods, a 7-acre art-form garden featuring plants native to the eastern United States. She is also an instructor for Longwood’s continuing education program, teaching courses on native and edible plants. In her home garden, the rules are: it has to be native or edible, ideally both (with the exception of Lily of the valley). She received a B.A. in Japanese studies, with a minor in Biology from Earlham College in Indiana.

Public horticulture combines her passion for art, science, the great outdoors, and connecting with people from all walks of life.

Our second guest is Scott Wade the Curator of the Peirce Historic Tree Collection at Longwood Gardens, in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Scott is a certified arborist and has work in commercial, private, and public horticulture his entire career. He is a graduate of Penn State University with a degree in Liberal arts. Scott is the past state coordinator of the Champion Tree Program of Pennsylvania, documenting the largest of each species of tree in the state from 2006-2019. He started at Longwood Gardens in 2009 performing tree assessments part-time and has been there ever since.

Sara Fern Fitzsimmons has worked with The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) at Penn State University (PSU) since 2003, assisting chestnut growers and researchers throughout the Appalachian Mountains. Born and raised in southern West Virginia (Hinton), Sara studied Biology at Drew University in Madison, NJ. She then received a master’s degree in forest ecology and resource management from Duke University’s Nicholas School. After a short stint as an editorial assistant at All About Beer Magazine, Sara returned to the forestry field, where she has been ever since. Sara hopes her research and professional work will facilitate long-term conservation and restoration of native tree species at risk from exotic pests and diseases.

John Holback’s environmental experience started as a child helping his dad cut invasive vines from the trees in the woods around their home. He learned a broad array of conservation efforts as a young adult in AmeriCorps and continued to build his skills while volunteering and working as a field coordinator with the Friends of the Wissahickon in the Wissahickon Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. John now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area of California and continues to apply his knowledge in his work in the Santa Cruz Mountains as an open space technician for Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District in Los Altos, California. John is also a professional musician and a graduate from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

Corey Bassett is a Ph.D. student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada where she is researching urban forest management and ecosystem services. She has worked and lived across the United States, where she has managed statewide urban and community forestry programs and performed arboricultural consulting and municipal tree care. Beyond her current research area, she is very active around issues such as establishing career and mentorship pipelines for early career professionals, setting standards for tree care for wildlife, and connecting urban forestry with related disciplines.

Corey currently serves as the first Student Representative to the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) Board of Directors, Public Outreach Director for the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the ISA’s Board of Directors, core member and co-author for the Tree Care for Wildlife program of the Western Chapter ISA, and co-author for the upcoming edition of the ISA Certified Arborist Study Guide. Corey is an ISA Certified Arborist and holds the ISA Tree Risk Assessment Qualification. She completed a Master’s in Environmental Studies, concentration in Environmental Biology, and B.A. in Earth Science, concentration in Environmental Science, both from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Jun Yang is a Professor in the Department of Earth System Science at Tsinghua University, China. He received his Ph.D. (2004) in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from the University of California at Berkeley. His specific interests include urban ecology, urban forestry, and ecological remote sensing. He has published more than 100 scientific papers. He serves as an associate editor for Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, and serves on the editorial board of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Frontier in Sustainable Cities, Biodiversity, Landscape Architecture, and China Urban Forestry. He was a member of the Science and Research Committee of the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) between 2010 and 2013.

Andrea Whitely is a garden consultant, designing and implementing new gardens, garden renovations, and garden maintenance in Perth, Australia.

Andrea is probably best known publicly for her work on 720 ABC radio with Sabrina Hahn as The Soil Sisters. Sabrina and Andrea hosted the very popular call-in program answering gardening questions for four years. They traveled together around Western Australia appearing live and were particularly popular in Western Australia sharing witty repartee as well as their love of all things garden related.

Andrea is a Regional Director with GardenComm International based in New York, USA. Since 2015 and prior to Covid-19 she traveled through the United States extensively attending the annual conferences and extending her trips to take in more gardens with friends.

Andrea has spoken publicly at Women of the Wheatbelt in Meriden, Gidgegannup Field Day, Kalamunda Community Garden, Australian Garden History events, Nannup Flower and Garden Festival, and at a variety of corporate events in Perth. For many years, as a member of the Horticulture Media Association, Andrea appeared as a speaker at The Perth Flower and Garden Festival.

Andrea has contributed to various gardening magazines including regular articles appearing in Hort Journal. The Australian Garden History Journal and HMA News as well as Our Gardens, Your Garden, Gardening Australia, and The Garden Guru papers. Her images have been published in The West Australian, and Australia’s Open Garden Scheme Guidebook, and many local newspapers around the state.

Andrea has traveled and visited gardens through Europe, Asia, the UK, The Pacific, The USA, and of course every state and territory in her homeland, Australia. She has even been to visit, Highgrove, the home of HRH Prince Charles.

Andrea is an award-winning blogger and is active on Social Media sites Facebook, Instagram Twitter, and Pinterest.

David Hewitt has been working with plants, animals, soils, and water for more than twenty-five years, starting when he began working on small farms in upstate New York. He has served in a variety of roles at a number of Philadelphia institutions, including the Wagner Free Institute of Science, and as a lecturer at the University of

Pennsylvania and a research associate in the Department of Botany at the Academy of Natural Sciences. He was an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow in Washington, DC, working in agricultural policy. David has an A.S. from the Community College of Philadelphia, a B.A. in biology from the The University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. from the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University.