Alessio Fini is professor of Arboriculture at the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences – Production, Landscape, Bioenergy of the University of Milan. Since 2005, he has been working on projects regarding sustainable cultivation techniques for nursery production and urban forestry, and on stress tolerance of urban trees. Research topics include: pruning; reduction in use of herbicides, irrigation and chemical fertilizers; effects of irradiance on leaf gas exchange and leaf anatomy; effects of different soil management techniques on tree health and soil functionality; increasing drought tolerance of urban trees through development of native and species-specific mycorrhiza, nursery pre-conditioning techniques, and species selection; evaluation of plant responses to climate change; evaluation of the effects of soil sealing on urban trees and urban soils. In 2011, he got a PhD in “Animal and vegetal production for sustainable landscape development” at the University of Florence. His PhD thesis dealt with the mechanisms of drought tolerance of shade trees and the selection of drought tolerant species. Since 2006 he is member of the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) and, since 2010, he is the representative for Europe in the ISA Membership Committee. In 2014, he was awarded with the Early Career Scientist Award by the International Society of Arboriculture. He is vice president of the Arboricultural Research and Education Academy (2016-2017). He is associate editor of the scientific journal Urban Forestrty and Urban Greening, and is currently editing of the Routledge Handbook of Urban Forestry and the special issue “Plant response to novel environmental pressures” for the scientific journal Frontiers in Plant Science. He is author of more than 120 publications in international peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, conference proceedings, and national journals.