People
Director
Greg Ettl is an Associate Professor,
Corkey Family and James Ridgeway Chair, and the Director of the Center for Sustainable Forestry at Pack Forest and the
Stand Management Cooperative. Greg's research interests are broad and interdisciplinary, reflecting his academic interests and administrative duties as the Director of three research centers. Many of his students work on projects that draw from multiple disciplines but in general fit within two categories:
- Forest Ecology. The largest emphasis of my prior research has been related to forest responses to either the physical environment or disturbance. My current research in this area uses several approaches to study forest responses to environmental stress including dendrochronology, population modeling, and ecophysiology. All of this work starts with field-based observations and data collection.
- Forest Management and Silviculture. I manage the UW’s 4300 ac experimental forest (www.packforest.org), with active projects examining seedling growth and mortality, wildlife habitat, and C sequestration associated with varying management practices. I am interested in sustainable forest management at multiple levels and through my students these efforts have expanded to forest management in the coastal rainforest of south-central Chile, and a developing project in the pine-oak forests of Chiapas Mexico.
One of my largest active projects is exploring the creation of markets for ecosystem services. This work examines differences in the ecosystem services provided by various harvest strategies; the project is called ECOSEL (http://faculty.washington.edu/toths/ecosel_intro.shtml), a collaborative effort with Sándor Tóth, Sergey Rabotyagov, and Luke Rodgers.
Administrative Specialist
Megan O'Shea manages the daily operations of the PFC, coordinates its field training, public information, web site, and outreach programs. She also supports the Stand Management Cooperative, based at the University of Washington (UW) School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS).
Research Scientist
Luke Rogers works for the Rural Technology Initiative (RTI) at the University of Washington (UW) School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS). He joined RTI in 2000 at its inception as a Federal pilot project mandated by the Forest and Fish laws. In that time Luke has instructed GIS training courses, completed his Masters of Science degree, and managed the UW ESRI License distribution, while spearheading several projects. Luke joined the PFC in 2009.
Executive Board
Recognizing the importance of the cooperative aspect of this program, an Executive Advisory Board has been established to provide review and guidance. Advice from the board helps to ensure our success in creating sustainable economic and environmental benefits for the State.
Faculty
L. Monika Moskal, is an Assistant Professor of Remote Sensing and Biospatial Analysis. Her research focuses on remote sensing and GIS applications for deriving forest structure and their applications to forest inventory, watershed management, wildlife habitat, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, biomass mapping and conversion, advanced forest inventory techniques using high spatial resolution optical remote sensing imagery, LiDAR (light detection and ranging) and radar, remote sensing data fusion with automated multiscale object delineation and feature extraction, Computer geovisualization (stereo visualization), forest cover visualization, hypertemporal remote sensing for sustainable forestry indicators, policy, and management, post fire regeneration, Detection of damaging agents in forests (hyperspectral).
Sándor Tóth, Assistant Professor of Natural Resource Informatics, is one of the three faculty members at the Precision Forest Cooperative leading the Natural Resource Decision Systems program. Toth pursues research in spatial optimization to aid forest management, open space retention, and the development of markets for forest ecosystem services. Apart from spatial optimization, what's common in these activities is the attempt to incorporate multiple, often conflicting management objectives in the decision models. Toth's work complements Moskal's efforts of developing efficient natural resource measurement techniques in that it ensures that the high-precision data found through remote sensing is put into the best possible use in deriving optimal on-the-ground management strategies.
Partners
Working with the PFC are professors from the School of Forest Resources:
Collaborators
Steve Reutebuch and Bob McGaughey
Silviculture and Forest Models Team
USDA Forest Service, PNW Research Station
Hans-Erik Andersen
PNW Forest Inventory and Analysis Team
USDA Forest Service, PNW Research Station
Kevin Ceder
Forest Technology Specialist
Habitat Models
School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS).
James McCarter
Software Devlopment Coordinator
Landscape Management System
School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS).
Students
See a list of current and former Precision Forestry students
