Constance Harrington was born in Pennsylvania and has lived in Illinois, upstate New York, California, Nebraska, Arkansas, and Washington. All the places she lived prior to Washington valued hardwoods, so she was surprised when she moved here in the late 1970s and people sneered at alder and called it a weed. She has a fondness for the underdog and often works on “neglected” species. Constance’s degrees are in forest biology (BS) and silviculture/soils (MS) from SUNY College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry, and in physiology/soils from University of Washington (PhD); her graduate research topics dealt with hardwoods. Her work ranges from basic biology or ecology studies to applied silvicultural trials. She published her first article on alder in 1979 and has published 12 others since then.