Ginger joined the UCF team as the Forest Pest Education Coordinator in the fall of 2018. Many of Ginger’s fondest memories involve trees and forests – including “running away from home” to sit in the branches of a hemlock in her family’s backyard in Massachusetts. With an undergraduate degree in botany from the University of Wisconsin and a graduate degree in Natural Resource Management Policy and Behavior from the University of Michigan, Ginger has long been fascinated by people’s relationship with plants and the land, and in finding ways to maximize community input in natural resource management decisions. To that end, Ginger spent a number of years after graduate school working for community development and conservation organizations in New England, Appalachia, and Central America. Some of her favorite projects involved training teens in Maine and Nicaragua to interview elders in their communities about how fishing, farming, hunting, and logging had changed over time. Prior to joining the UCF team, Ginger worked for UVM Extension’s Center for Sustainable Agriculture, helping fruit and vegetable farmers with food safety strategies.