CONFERENCE SPEAKERS

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. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the International Society of Arboriculture, the steering committee for Green Communities Leadership Institute, the Board Chair for the Urban Wood Network and a senior fellow with the American Leadership Forum - Mountain Valley Chapter.

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 throughout its entire lifecycle. 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 to create livable and loveable communities.

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.