Hugh Irwin has extensive experience in conservation planning, serving as a Landscape Conservation Planner at The Wilderness Society from November 2011 to the present and previously as Conservation Planner/Program Director at the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition from August 1995 to November 2011. Hugh Irwin holds a Master of Science degree in Forest Ecology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, earned between 1975 and 1981, and completed undergraduate studies at Vanderbilt University from 1968 to 1972.