Annaliese Bischoff is a Western Massachusetts artist and landscape architect. For the past decade, she has been collecting drawings and etchings of trees by Frank A. Waugh, founder of the Landscape Gardening Program at what is today the University of Massachusetts Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning.

Annaliese has received numerous awards and honors for her design and research work, including a Fulbright senior research award. Before her academic career, she worked propagating trees at a nursery in Rhode Island and for the U.S.D.A. Forest Service in South Carolina. The author of The Man Who Loved Trees (2024), she currently serves on the Frank A. Waugh Arboretum Committee at UMass Amherst, home to 8000 trees on campus, and teaches an honors discovery seminar on trees.

Marshall Green is a fourth-generation owner and the dedicated nursery manager at Primex Garden Center in Glenside, Pennsylvania. After growing up around Primex,

Patricia Gallagher is Professor Emerita of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at Drexel University. She earned bachelor’s degrees in civil

At Drexel, Trish taught courses in civil and environmental engineering, geology, and sustainability.  Her course in sustainability, titled “Incorporating Sustainability Principles in Design” was inspired by her desire to teach design from a holistic, regenerative perspective that restores ecological balance and health in communities and ecosystems. The course explores how the concept of sustainability is fundamental to the planning, design, construction, operation, and renewal of resilient and sustainable infrastructure.

Trish believes we need to work in our own communities to restore functional ecosystems in urban and suburban areas. She began volunteering with the Abington

 John’s commitment to the treescapes around us has inspired him to educate others on the importance of trees in our environment. Conducting hands-on training through demonstration and coaching on how to plant, prune, and care for trees.

 While employed full-time in the food service profession, John returned to school in 2006 as a part-time student to study horticulture. In 2015, he completed his degree at Temple University’s School of Environmental Design in Ambler, Pennsylvania.

He also holds a Certificate in Horticultural Therapy.  

Khomchalat Thongting (Kom) is a visionary entrepreneur hailing from a working-class background, who has dedicated 29 years to building a thriving computer and IT consulting business with a team of 45 professionals.

With a passion for sustainability and a drive for global impact, Kom has expanded his horizons by delving into the bamboo industry, cultivating 95 acres of bamboo and intercrops while conducting valuable seminars and workshops for local communities. KOM’s recognized

Climbing the corporate ladder, she achieved remarkable success at Aderans. Later, she co-founded a thriving

Nui's recent endeavors reflect her dedication to sustainability, including the co-founding of Wongphai Company, Limited, focused on eco-friendly

Ben Shardlow is the Board Chair for the Creative Enterprise Zone, a place-based non-profit organization dedicated to attracting and supporting creative people and businesses in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

As an urban planner and designer focused on complex public spaces, Ben has worked on developing innovative programs to grow the urban tree canopy in challenging sites for over a decade. In the largely-industrial Creative

Ben's day job is the Chief of Staff for the Minneapolis Downtown Council & Downtown Improvement District, where he has worked since 2012 addressing the root causes of a variety of public

Basil Camu loves trees. And soil, wildflowers, insects, bats, fungi - basically everything to do with terrestrial ecosystems. He is fully committed to caring for this beautiful planet. He is a Treecologist, ISA Board Certified Master Arborist, Duke University graduate, and Wizard of Things at Leaf & Limb. Though trees are his passion and profession, he also loves tending to the native flowers in his garden, growing Piedmont Prairies, and propagating plants from seed. Some of Basil's favorite pastimes are hanging out with his wife and sons, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, powerlifting, hiking, and sprinting. His next favorite things in life are reading, garlic, traveling adventures, blazing hot peppers, pickles, and food from Lucettegrace in

Sandy and Julia Shettler are a mother-daughter team with Tree Action Seattle, which advocates for Seattle's trees at the neighborhood level and at City Hall.  

Sandy is a medical social worker with a background in public health. She focuses on the physical and mental health benefits of living near trees, and the need to bring these benefits to deforested and underserved urban communities. Julia is an electrical engineer by training and works in climate tech. She is deeply interested in preserving the natural environment as a common-sense solution to climate change.

Tree Action Seattle is a collective effort that was sparked by the City of Seattle’s July 2023 approval of the cutting of a large western red cedar. Nicknamed “Luma”, the Snoqualmie Tribe identified the tree as historic and culturally modified. This singular tree illuminated glaring flaws in Seattle’s tree code.

Erica Kratofil is Co-Executive Director for The Giving Grove, where she helps lead a national network of urban community orchard and food forest programs. As a

Erica is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and has a master’s in social work and nonprofit management from Washington University in St. Louis. She has worked previously in education, food security initiatives, and community-based housing programs. She also served as a social work field instructor for the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Amy Stewart is the New York Times best-selling author of The Drunken Botanist, Wicked Plants, and several other popular nonfiction titles about the natural world. She’s also written several novels in her beloved Kopp Sisters series, based on the story of one of America’s first female deputy sheriffs and her two rambunctious sisters.

Her books have sold over a million copies worldwide and have been translated into 18 languages.

She lives in Portland with her husband Scott Brown, a rare book dealer who can usually be found at his shop, Downtown Brown Books.

You might’ve heard Amy on NPR’s Morning Edition or Fresh Air or seen her profiled in the New York Times. Her

Amy’s 2009 book Wicked Plants was adapted into a national traveling exhibit that terrified children at science museums nationwide for over a decade. Even better, a few bars around the world are named after The Drunken Botanist.

It’s an honor just to be nominated, but it’s even better to win, and she’s won a National Endowment for the Arts

Amy travels the country as a highly sought-after public speaker whose spirited lectures have inspired and

Dr. Glynn Percival is the Senior Arboricultural Researcher at the Bartlett Tree Research and Diagnostic Laboratory. Dr. Percival primarily focuses on how environmental