Nina Bassuk has been a professor and program leader of the Urban Horticulture Institute at Cornell University for the past 37 years. She has been a member of the Board of Directors of the New York State Urban Forestry Council and is co- author of 'Trees in the Urban Landscape”, a text for landscape architects and horticultural practitioners on establishing trees in disturbed and urban landscapes. In addition, Dr. Bassuk has authored over100 papers on the physiological problems of plants growing in urban environments, including improved plant selections for difficult sites, soil modification including the development of 'CU-Structural Soil' and improved transplanting technology. She works closely with municipalities to help implement best practices in urban forestry management and developed the Student Weekend Arborist Team to inventory public trees in communities in NY State. Nina co-teaches a course at Cornell University titled “Creating the Urban Eden”, which integrates the woody plant identification and use with landscape establishment techniques for difficult urban sites.