Meet the Department

Jo Ellen Force
Professor; Department Head
Specialty Areas of Interest: Forest policy and the relationships between people and natural resources; Human Ecosystem Model and related studies
» View Jo Ellen Force's faculty profile

Debbie Rigby
Administrative Assistant II
Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Fire Sciences
208.885.6022 | Office: CNR 203
» debbier@uidaho.edu

Brenda Haener
Administrative Assistant I
Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Fire Sciences
208.885.7952 | Office: CNR 204
» bhaener@uidaho.edu

Luigi Boschetti
Associate Professor
Specialty Area of Interest: Global Biomass Burning; Remote Sensing of Fire; Global Environmental Remote Sensing Applications; Global Carbon Cycle
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Randy Brooks
Extension Forestry Specialist
Specialty Areas of Interest: Forestry extension; Forest ecosystems and wildland urban interface landscapes ; Increasing natural resources knowledge; Solving problems for local, regional and national stakeholders
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Stephen Bunting
Professor
Specialty Areas of Interest: Community and landscape ecology; Fire ecology and behavior
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Mark Coleman
Associate Professor
Specialty Areas of Interest: Forest tree nutrition; Bioenergy feedstock production; Intensive silviculture; Below ground processes
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Steven Daley-Laursen
Senior Executive, Office of the Vice President for Research & Economic Development; Professor of Forestry, Rangeland and Fire Sciences
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Anthony S. Davis
Assistant Professor of Native Plant Regeneration and Silviculture
Director, Center for Forest Nursery and Seedling Research
Specialty Areas of Interest: * Native plant regeneration * Silviculture
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Jan U.H. Eitel, Researcher in Residence
Research Assistant Professor
Jan teaches CSS 560: Place-based Ecology for Environmental Educators and Scientific Computing and Geospatial workshops. He has been working with the MOSS program since 2010. Jan's research focuses on using and developing remote sensing tools and techniques to better understand the environment we live in. He loves outdoor sports such as biking, trail running, Nordic skiing, and backcountry skiing.
» View Jan's faculty profile

Amanda Gearhart
Rangeland Extension Specialist / Assistant Professor
Rangeland Extension Specialist
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Paul Gessler
Professor; Co-Director, Geospatial Laboratory for Environmental Dynamics
Specialty Areas of Interest: Remote sensing & GIS for forest ecosystem analysis & monitoring; Wildland fire fuels and fire hazard mapping; Airborne sensor development; Environmental, Ecosystem and Soil-Landscape Modeling; Terrain and Watershed Analysis; Forest Soils; Spatial Statistics
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Thomas M. Gorman
Associate Dean;Professor of Renewable Materials
Research Interests: Wood quality; Small diameter log utilization; Mechanical properties of wood; Sustainable green building practices; Energy-efficient wood-framed housing; Durability of wood-framed buildings
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Jim Gosz
Special Assistant to the Dean, CNR and Vice President for Research and Economic Development; Research Professor
Specialty Areas of Interest: Natural resource management and contrasting environments under different levels of human activity; Urban to wilderness
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Philip Higuera
Assistant Professor
Specialty Areas of Interest: Paleoecology; Fire history; Climate-vegetation-fire relationships; Environmental change
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Katy Kavanagh
Professor
Specialty Areas of Interest: Silviculture; Forest ecosystem processes; Tree hydraulic architecture
» katyk@uidaho.edu

Robert Keefe
Assistant Professor of Forest Operations
Specialty areas of interest: Forest operations, forest operations modeling, forest management and planning, growth and yield
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Karen Launchbaugh
Professor
Specialty Areas of Interest: Plant-animal interactions; Grazing management; Animal behavior
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Timothy E. Link
Associate Professor of Hydrology
Specialty Areas of Interest: Forest hydrology; Snow hydrology; Vegetation atmosphere interactions;* Hydrologic Modeling
» tlink@uidaho.edu

Gary Machlis
Professor of Conservation; Science Advisor to the Director, National Park Service
Specialty Areas of Interest: Social ecology; Relationship between biophysical and socioeconomic systems; Development of usable knowledge for conservation; Resource management; Sustainability sciences; Warfare ecology
» Email Gary Machlis

John D. Marshall
Professor
Specialty Areas of Interest: Tree physiology; Ecosystem ecology; Stable isotope ratios
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Armando McDonald
Professor, Biomaterials and Bioproducts
Research Interests: Biopolymers and bioplastics synthesis/biosynthesis from waste streams; Biobased composite materials research, including fiber modifications and product prototype development; Development of biobased fuels from biomass, including pyrolysis and synthesis gas upgrading to gasoline; Understanding wood/xylem formation using a combined biochemistry/proteomics approach
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Penelope Morgan
Professor
Specialty Areas of Interest: Fire ecology and management; Landscape ecology; Natural resources ecology and conservation
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George Newcombe
Professor
Research Interests: Genetics of resistance of woody plants to disease; Fungal pathogens of Populus and Salix: their taxonomy, ecology, and distributions; Endophyte mutualists of forest tree; Hyperparasitism; Plant-soil feedback in plant invasions
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Beth Newingham
Assistant Professor
Specialty area of Interest: Processes that affect restoration of natural ecosystems
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R. Robberecht
Professor
Specialty area of Interest: Physiological plant ecology (Ecophysiology); guided independent learning (use of information technology in science education); scientific visualization and modeling (integration of ecological processes, molecule to globe)
» View R. Robberecht's Site

Alistair Smith
Assistant Professor
Research Specialty: Fire Science Ecohydrology Remote Sensing Smoke Management and Air Quality
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Eva Strand
Assistant Professor
Research Specialty: Spatial ecology; Applied Landscape Ecology; GIS applications in natural resources
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David C. Tank
Assistant Professor & Director, Stillinger Herbarium
I am a plant systematist and am broadly interested in the investigation of the patterns and processes that shape plant biodiversity. In general, my research is focused on the use of molecular methods to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships in plants and the application of phylogenetic methods to understand plant evolution. The evolutionary causes and consequences of processes such as hybridization, polyploidy, pollination biology, biogeography, rapid diversification, and niche evolution can only be understood in light of a robust phylogenetic hypothesis, and these hypotheses are a necessary component of modern taxonomic treatments and classification systems. Research in my lab is directed at multiple levels of plant phylogeny and current projects range from comparative phylogeography of the Pacific Northwest inland rainforest communities, to the study of species boundaries and diversification among very closely related species, to patterns of diversification among some of the major lineages comprising the plant tree of life.
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Lee Vierling
Executive Director, UI McCall Field Campus and McCall Outdoor Science School (MOSS)
Associate Professor, Department of Forest, Rangeland and Fire Sciences
Specialty area of Interest: Remote Sensing; Spatial Ecology; Biogeochemistry; Global Change; Interdisciplinary Science Education
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