Zoë Schlanger is a staff writer at the Atlantic, where she covers climate change. She is the author of The Light Eaters, a New York Times bestselling book about the world of plant-behavior-and-intelligence research, published by HarperCollins. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, NPR, and The New York Review of Books, among other major outlets.  Zoë was the recipient of a 2017 National Association of Science Writers reporting award for coverage of air pollution in Detroit, and a finalist for the 2019 Livingston Award for a series on water politics at the Texas-Mexico border. She is often a guest speaker at journalism schools. She lives in New York. 

José G. González is a professional educator with training in the fields of education and conservation. He is the Founder of Latino Outdoors, Co-Founder of the Outdoorist Oath, as well as having served as a consultant at large as a Partner at the Avarna Group and his own consulting. He currently serves as the inaugural Equity Officer for the East Bay Regional Park District. His work focuses on Equity & Inclusion frameworks and practices in the environmental, outdoor, and conservation fields. He is also an illustrator and science communicator.   

José received his B.A. at the University of California, Davis, with teaching coursework at the Bilingual, Multicultural, Education Department at Sacramento State. He received his M.S. at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources & Environment. He serves as a board member at Parks CA as well as a Commissioner for the California Boating & Waterways Commission, along with having served in a variety of other board and voluntary leadership roles in several conservation and outdoor industry organizations. He also appreciates a witty pun. 

Geneva E. B. Thompson (she/her/hers) joined the California Natural Resources Agency in June 2021 as the Deputy Secretary for Tribal Affairs. In this role, Geneva will cultivate and ensure the participation and inclusion of Tribal governments and communities within the work of the California Natural Resources Agency. She recently served as Associate General Counsel for the Yurok Tribe, where she practiced environmental and cultural resource law and represented the Yurok Tribe in Tribal, state, and federal forums. She also served as Staff Attorney for the Wishtoyo Foundation, and clerked with the Department of Justice Indian Resource Section, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, and the Tribal Law and Policy Institute. Geneva graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, with specializations in Critical Race Studies and Public Interest Law and Policy.

She has published several law review articles and has served in leadership positions across multiple bar associations, including the National Native American Bar Association, California Indian Law Association, and the American Bar Association. Geneva is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and enjoys beading, gardening, and hiking with her spouse in state and national parks. 

Dr. Hugh Safford is a fire and vegetation ecologist in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California-Davis. Safford was the Regional Ecologist for the USDA-Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Region (California, Hawaii, Pacific territories) between 2001 and 2021, and he served as Chief Scientist for Vibrant Planet, an environmental public benefits corporation focused on forest resilience and wildfire risk reduction, between 2022 and 2024. The Safford Lab at UC-Davis (https://safford.ucdavis.edu/) is focused on applied ecological support to resource and fire management in California and worldwide. Safford is director of the Sierra Nevada section of the California Fire Science Consortium, he is PI of the California State Parks Prescribed Fire Monitoring Program, and he leads the annual California Fire Science Retreat.

While in the Forest Service, Safford established the multipartner Southern California Montane Forest Conservation Strategy and founded the recurring California Chaparral Symposium. Safford has provided international technical assistance on ecosystem and fire management and climate change issues since the 1990s. Recent projects include climate change adaptation in Ukraine, risk mitigation planning in Georgia and Chile, and forest management and restoration in Mexico, North Africa, and the Levant. Safford has been the recipient of two Fulbright Scholarships: one in 2017-2019, to study post-fire ecosystem restoration practices in the Mediterranean Basin, and another in 2025 to study the flora of ultramafic rock outcrops in Madagascar. Safford co-edited the 2021 Postfire Restoration Framework for National Forests in California, which provides guidance for management decision-making in burned ecosystems under changing environmental baselines. Safford grew up in southwestern Montana, he has lived in California since 1986 and splits his time between Davis and the Lake Tahoe Basin. In his free time, Safford plays the piano, skis, climbs mountains, and gets hit periodically by lightning.

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The mission of the California Native Plant Society is to protect California’s native plants and their natural habitats, today and into the future, through science, education, stewardship, gardening, and advocacy.

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