Thea Chesney

Thea Chesney is a lifelong Sierra Nevada foothill resident and naturalist. She has had an interest in mushrooms (and plants, and the rest of the natural world) since early childhood, which gradually became an obsession. She holds a B.S. in forestry from UC Berkeley. During her time at Berkeley, she spent plenty of time working and hanging out in the Berkeley mycology labs. She worked on a mushroom survey crew around Mt. Shasta for several seasons, which allowed her to become intimately familiar with the fungal inhabitants and ecology of the area. Since then, she has worked a variety of field jobs, primarily as a botanist. She teaches occasional workshops in mushroom and plant identification. Her fieldwork and her own studies of plants and fungi are centered in the Sierra Nevada and other mountains of California.