When Specs Meet Reality: Partnering with Nursery Growers for Successful Planting Design - 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)

Leah Kahler is the 2024-2025 McHarg Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. Their current research is on the expanded socioecoogical geographies of the nursery trade and is more broadly concerned with legacies of the plantation landscape, focused on sites of labor, extraction, and production. Leah previously practiced with Reed Hilderbrand’s Cambridge studio and has taught at the Boston Architectural College.

Jehane Samaha is the National Urban Nursery Specialist with the USDA Forest Service. She develops trainings and networking for both urban foresters and nursery growers to improve tree stock quality, enhance connectivity in the urban nursery pipeline, and promote adaptive genetics for urban trees. Jehane is based in Philadelphia and previously worked at PHS (the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society) and the Morris Arboretum. She is an ISA certified municipal arborist, and completed a master’s thesis at the University of British Columbia on street tree species selection.

Megan Higgins-Palomo is the Nursery Director for Tree Pittsburgh, an Urban Forestry non-profit. In her 10 years with the organization, Megan has led the construction and operation of the nationally recognized Heritage Nursery, which grows genetically diverse plant material from locally collected seed for ecosystem restoration efforts. Before joining Tree Pittsburgh, Megan was the Business Development and Design Manager at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. Megan learned the nursery trade by working alongside her relatives at their family-owned garden center for many years.