Speakers 20.04.2023

Stefano Boeri, architect and urban planner, is Full Professor of Urban Planning at Politecnico di Milano and Director of the Future City Lab at Tongji University in Shanghai. Stefano Boeri has been invited as a visiting professor to many international universities such as Harvard University Graduate School of Design, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam and the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio.

He is President of the Future of Cities Foundation and of the Scientific Committee of Forestami, the urban forestation project in the Milan metropolitan area. Architect of the Bosco Verticale, built in Milan in 2014, Stefano Boeri’s work ranges from planning architecture and urban visions to design, with a constant focus toward the geopolitical and environmental implications of urban phenomena. 

Clive Davies is an academic at Newcastle University UK and a consultant working with EFI, FAO and EC. Clive is a specialist in urban forestry, green infrastructure and nature-based solutions. He has a long association with the European Forum on Urban Forestry (EFUF) and is chair of the international steering group.

Clive’s current work includes the EC Horizon 2020 Sino-Europe CLEARING HOUSE project (Urban Forestry as a Nature Based Solution) and has acted as a technical editor and author in the BioCities Green Book.

Sandra Frank is Marketing Director and Head of global movement at Arvet. Sandra has guided and lectured for more than 20,000 visitors from 150 different countries at Strandparken in Stockholm, the world’s first 8-storey apartment building totally out of wood that Arvet developed and built in 2013.

Sandra has been travelling the globe to speak about the importance of replanting our forests and using renewable building materials instead of fossile ones in the building industry. She has also been engaged and arranged exhibitions with beautiful wooden pavilions, talks and seminars at for example the Achitechtural Biennale in Venice and at UN-Habitat Assembly at the UN Compound in Nairobi to spread the knowledge and raise the consciousness about renewable materials that we actually can plant and harvest.  

The building industry is letting out more than 36% of our global Co2-emissions and now is the time to take responsibility and make a quick and united green shift to a circular economy.  

Sandra’s and Arvet’s work focus on the importance of revolutionarily changing the building industry from using finite resources and carbon intensive materials such as steel and concrete to the use of renewable, sustainable, bio-based materials.  

Vicente Guallart is an architect who works in the development of projects for ecological cities and buildings across the globe with his company Guallart Architects. He has won numerous international competitions including Housing post-COVID in Xiong’an (2020). He was chief architect of Barcelona (2011-15). He was also founder of the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (2001) from where he works in the development of Biocities, from the Valldaura Labs center. He is the author of numerous books, such as “The self-sufficient city”, “Geologics” and “Plans and Projects for Barcelona”. He has recently won a competition to make the tallest wooden dwelling building in Barcelona.

Dan Lambe is the President and CEO of The Arbor Day Foundation, the largest nonprofit membership organization dedicated to planting trees. In his role, Dan is responsible for the overall strategic direction of the organization and advancing its mission to inspire people to plant, nurture and celebrate trees.  

Under his leadership, the Arbor Day Foundation has undergone remarkable growth through the development of programs and partnerships that have helped plant more than 500 million trees in the last 50 years around the world.  

Dan is a trusted thought leader in the sustainable forestry space and regularly speaks at conferences hosted by the United Nations, Sustainable Brands, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other high-profile industry events. Dan is also frequently used as a resource to top news outlets organizations is often featured on The Weather Channel, CNN, Forbes, Fast Company, NPR and most recently the author of "Now is the Time For Trees" book. 

Yvonne advises city and national governments worldwide on how to develop green cities and adapt rapidly to extreme climate conditions. 

She is currently involved with Green KSA a major initiative to sustainably green Saudi Arabia. She has collaborated with Royal Commission for Riyadh City for more than four years to develop and lead the implementation of Green Riyadh, the largest integrated urban greening project globally. This ambitious €11 billion effort to green one of the world's most arid cities is creating new benchmarks in climate adaptation.

Prior to this, Yvonne worked with the City of Melbourne for a decade, where she is well known for pioneering the city's famous tree emails and leading the Urban Forest and Ecology team. The team's work garnered multiple international and national innovation awards under her leadership. She designed Melbourne's Urban Forest Fund to incentivize private sector greening, and implemented Melbourne's largest and longest community participation program, engaging over 20,000 citizens in urban forestry activities. She has also led the city's Future Melbourne and climate adaptation portfolios. 

Yvonne has also served as a guest lecturer for many years at the University of Melbourne.  

Marco is Full Professor (Chair of Forest Management and Conservation) at the University of Molise (Italy) and head of the Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Geomatics. He has been Dean of the School of Forest and Environmental Sciences, Director of the Department of Biosciences and Territory and Vice Rector of the University. Former member and chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Forest Institute, he has been appointed in the Board in 2017, currently being the Chairman. He is in the Team of Specialist “Monitoring of sustainable forest management” of UN-ECE/FAO since 2000. Since 2014 in the National Committee for Urban Forestry, in 2018 he has been member of the Scientific Committee of the World Forum on Urban Forests, organized by FAO, POLIMI, SISEF. Since 2020 he is the President of Fondazione Alberitalia, which is acting with regional authorities and local municipalities to expand values, culture and projects of urban and peri-urban forestry in the context of circular bioeconomy.  

Liz O’Brien is Head of the Society and Environment Research Group at Forest Research, a government research institute. Her research explores human-forest relationships with a particular focus on the cultural ecosystem benefits of trees and woodlands including a strong focus on the health and wellbeing benefits of engagement with trees and woodlands – physical, mental and social.

Her team includes nearly 20 social scientists undertaking research on land manager decision making and behaviours; the social dimensions of tree health; the health and wellbeing benefits of engaging with forests, and the social dimensions of wildlife engagement and management. Liz leads a five-year programme of research on the societal benefits of trees and forests for Forest Research, she is a project lead and work package leader on two projects that focus on the social and cultural values of trees and forests, one of the projects has a particular focus on urban environments (Branching Out). She has explored the impact of Covid-19 on engagement with nature. She has also led the evaluation of the Active Forests Programme for Forestry England which has been running since 2014.

Marc Palahí is a leading expert on forests and global change, with a new vision of the transformational role forests can play in fighting climate change and developing a circular bioeconomy. He has been Director of the European Forest Institute since 2015, driving its development as a pan-European science-policy platform, and working to connect knowledge to action at the interface of science, policy and business.

Marc has a PhD in forestry and economics and his work, which has featured in Nature and other high-level scientific journals, focuses on the development of a sustainable circular bioeconomy that prospers in harmony with Nature.

Marc leads the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance established in 2020 by His Majesty King Charles III (formerly His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales).

Helga Pülzl is Assistant Director for Policy Support of the European Forest Institute and responsible for the Policy Support Facility and its Trust Fund. Her main research interests are in European and international forest governance and policy change, bioeconomy perceptions and sustainability indicators development. She coordinates the IUFRO Working Party 9.05.01 on bioeconomy policy and holds a Phd and master’s degree in political science from the University of Vienna.

A trailblazer and change maker driven by purpose with more than 25 years of experience in the sustainability field for different types of companies and sectors, Rossella is Sustainability Director at Armani Group. From 2008 to 2020, as “Head of Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility” at Gucci, she led the company to achieve internationally recognized leadership on sustainability. She is a builder of relationships with key global stakeholders and Chair of sustainability committees, as well as Advisory board member since 2009. Rossella is the author of articles and publications and a lecturer at several Universities.

Francesco Rutelli  is the President of the Italian Association of Cinema, Audiovisual and Digital Companies (ANICA). Prior to this, he was  the Mayor of Rome in 1993-2001 and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Culture of Italy in 2006-2008. He was also Member of the Italian Parliament from 1983 to 2013 and Member of the European Parliament during 1999-2004.

In 2013, he decided to step down from any political-institutional position, and to manage both professional and not-for-profit activities. He is currently President, Soft Power Club; Chairman, Meeting of Civilizations Association; President, Institute of European Democrats (Brussels); President, Anica Academy: President, Videocittà, Moving Images Festival.

Francesco has a degree in Landscape and Environmental Planning and Design (La Sapienza University, Tuscia University). He is the President of the Centre for a Sustainable Future. He recently established ESGR (Environmental, Social, Governance, Reputation), a Benefit Company. His recent books are: "Tutte le strade partono da Roma" (2020); "Roma, Camminando" (2022); "Il Secolo Verde" (2023).

Fabio Salbitano (PhD in Forest Ecology) is associate professor at the University of Sassari teaching silviculture, urban tree systems, urban ecology and biodiversity, sustainable design and management of urban and periurban. 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.  He is also the scientific coordinator of the National Center on the Study and Conservation of Biodiversity at DAGRI-University of Florence. Fabio, on behalf of the Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology, promoted and co-organized the first World Forum on Urban Forests (WFUF), held in Mantova in 2018. He is member of the Scientific Committee of the second WFUF, Washington D.C., October 2023. He is co-editor of the book “Transforming Biocities”, produced by SISEF for the European Forest Institute. He carried out research on forest, health, and wellbeing, landscape ecology and history, ecosystem restoration, strategic planning and community engagement, wildfire ecology and risk assessment.  His latest research concerns nature- and landscape-based solutions and ecosystem restoration in drylands. He was involved in several European funded projects but also in bottom up initiatives on forest ecology, urban forest governance, community engagement in urban forests design and management, and nature based solutions.

Giuseppe Scarascia-Mugnozza is Head of EFI's Biocities Facility in Rome. He holds a PhD in Forestry at the University of Washington (USA) and is full professor of Urban forests & Landscape at University of Tuscia and at Rome University-Sapienza (Italy). He coordinated European and national research on trees and forests mitigation and adaptation to climate change, is presently leading a project within the National Centre on Biodiversity and is member of the scientific committee of the Natural Reserve of Castelporziano of the Republic Presidency.

A passionate and experienced science communicator, Gesche joined EFI’s Bonn office in 2017 to lead the Communications Team of currently 7 people. After engaging with Deutsche Welle and the international Max Weber Foundation, Gesche is now for responsible for managing dissemination and communication activities for international, European and national research projects. She also enjoys moderating events and engaging with diverse stakeholders from science, policy, forestry practice and society. Gesche is a political scientist by background and started to work in science communications more than 15 years ago.

Dr Mònica Ubalde is a biologist by training and holds a PhD in Biomedicine, Public Health. She is an impact and evidence translation-oriented scientist leading transdisciplinary research on build environment and health, with an emphasis on school environments.

She currently develops her work at the Urban Planning, Environment and Health-UPEH Initiative ISGlobal (Barcelona), were she leads research on urban school environments, impact evaluation, implementation science and translation. She coordinates studies within national (Climate Shelters-UIA, Let´s Protect Schools-Barcelona City) and international projects (proGIreg, ATHLETE, InChildHealth).

Dr. Ivana Živojinović is a senior researcher at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU). She is also an active member of the EFI's Forest Policy Research Network hosted by BOKU. Dr. Živojinović holds a doctoral degree in social and economic sciences in forestry obtained from BOKU. Additionally, she holds a double master's degree in European forestry from BOKU and the University of Eastern Finland (UEF). Her bachelor's degree in landscape architecture was obtained from the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Forestry in Serbia. With over 10 years of experience in research, Dr. Živojinović has worked on numerous research projects, including several European-funded initiatives such as ArcticHubs, ClearingHouse, ReBio, SIMRA, STARTREE, FACESMAP COST Action, and others. Her research interests include forest policy and governance, private ownership studies, institutional and innovation analysis of forestry and forest services, as well as urban forestry policy issues, awareness and perception studies, and nature-based solutions in urban settings. Dr. Živojinović's research has primarily focused on Western European countries and former socialist Eastern and South-Eastern European countries. Dr. Živojinović was also part of the ReBio project in which a research agenda for Biocities in collaboration with an international team was developed.