Dodo Loechle and Fabio Andrés Ávila Castillo

Dodo Loechle teaches classes in botany and gardening throughout New York City, including certificate courses in horticulture, plant identification, rooftop gardening, native plants, and proper plant usage. She has also worked at various botanic gardens and estates, including Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town, South Africa. In addition to horticulture, she has a background in design and fine metalcraft.

Fabio Andrés Ávila Castillo (Andrés) is a Colombian forest engineer and second-year PhD student in the Biology–Plant Sciences program at CUNY. His research interests are in systematics and biogeography of neotropical vascular plants, especially in the northern South American Compositae (daisy family), and Proteales (Sabiaceae and Proteaceae [macadamia nut family]). He has worked in several botanic gardens: Bogotá, Cartagena, Medellín (Colombia), and Kew (UK), in conservation, living collections, editorial work, and taxonomy.