8 CityTREES
In This Issue: Contributors
Visit urban-forestry.com to learn about all things SMA, including
the Municipal Forestry Institute, SMA Municipal Accreditation, our
Arborist Exchange program, Annual Conference, and more. You
can also find a compendium of several dozen written Roundtables
on subjects ranging far and wide, including Urban Forestry in
Zoos, Managing Natural Areas in the Urban Forest, Bees and
Urban Forests, Working with Slopes, and Large Tree Relocation.
Gina Dake is a Botanic Special-
ist I for Portland Parks and Recre-
ation Urban Forestry Division.
Gina is an ISA Certified Arbor-
ist, Utility Specialist, and Tree
Risk Assessment Qualified and
has over 13 years of experience
in urban forestry, natural resource
management, consulting, and educational outreach.
Beattra Wilson began her career
with the USDA Forest Service in
2002 in Atlanta; she is now
the Forest Service Assistant
Director of Cooperative For-
estry and National Lead for
Urban and Community Forest-
ry. She earned her undergrad-
uate degree in Urban Forestry from
Southern University and A&M College and her Mas-
ter of Public Administration from Kennesaw University.
Nik Desai is a Botanic Special-
ist II for Portland Parks and Rec-
reation Urban Forestry Division.
Nik is an ecologist/conserva-
tion biologist with expertise in
mycology (particularly mycor-
rhizal fungi). He works in natu-
ral resource preservation, forest-
ry dynamics, sustainable urban devel-
opment, bioremediation, and fungal taxonomy.
Jean Zimmerman is a Commer-
cial and Consulting Arbor-
ist for SavATree and a grad-
uate of the 2020 Munici-
pal Forestry Institute. She is
also a published author (jean-
zimmerman.com), a New York-
based writer who has made
the history of Manhattan a cen-
tral focus of both her fiction and nonfiction.