David L. Peterson
U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Seattle, WA
Dave Peterson is a Research Biologist with the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory in Seattle and is Professor in the College of Forest Resources, University of Washington. He directs the Fire and Environmental Research Applications team, which conducts research on fire science, fuels, and climate change. He has conducted research on fire ecology and climate change in mountain ecosystems throughout the Western United States and has published over 180 scientific articles and 3 books. He is a principal investigator for the Western Mountain Initiative and, as a contributing author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He is currently working on hazardous fuel treatment issues in the West and on adaptation options for managing natural resources in a warmer climate. Dave and his wife Linda live on their tree farm in Skagit County, Washington, where they enjoy working on the land, gardening, bonsai, hiking, and skiing.
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Climate and Stress Interactions in Western Forest Ecosystems
Constance I. Millar
U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station Albany, CAMillar is a senior research scientist with the U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Sierra Nevada Research Center (SNRC), Albany and Lee Vining, California. In her early career at the Institute of Forest Genetics, she focused on population, evolutionary, and conservation genetics of western forest conifers . In recent years, she redirected her research within SNRC to focus on Quaternary sciences and to study responses of high-elevation conifers to historical and anthropogenic climate variability. Her research team now specializes in high-elevation dendrochronology, paleoecology, and climate change. She has long emphasized the applications of science in resource-management, serving as co-team leader of the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, founding and directing CIRMOUNT (the Consortium for Integrated Climate Research in Western Mountains), and providing a leadership role in developing resource management strategies for a climate-change context in western North America.
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Mike Ryan
U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station Fort Collins, COMike Ryan is a research ecologist for the USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins, Colorado (since 1990), and affiliate faculty of the graduate degree program in ecology at Colorado State University. His research focuses on forests and the carbon cycle, including forest productivity; changes in tree physiology and ecosystem processes with disturbance, recovery, and tree age; carbon allocation; the effects of global change; plant respiration; ecosystem respiration; soil carbon and nitrogen interactions; decomposition of soil carbon; and coordination of carbon, water, and nutrient cycles. Mike has led or participated in field research studies in the United States (Colorado, Wyoming, Hawaii, New Mexico), Costa Rica, Canada, Brazil, New Zealand, and Australia. Mike serves as an editor for Tree Physiology, is on the editorial review board of Plant, Cell and Environment, and is chair of the International Union of Forestry Research Organization’s working group on canopy processes. He received his B.S. from the University of Pittsburgh, M.S. from Northern Arizona University, and Ph.D. from Oregon State University and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Ecosystems Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory.
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Jill Baron
U.S. Geological Survey Fort Collins, COJill S. Baron is an ecosystem ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, and a senior research ecologist with the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University. Her interests include applying ecosystem concepts to management of human-dominated regions, and understanding the biogeochemical and ecological effects of climate change and atmospheric nitrogen deposition to mountain ecosystems. Recently Baron served as lead author of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program report on Climate Change Adaptation Options for National Parks, and was a member of the Department of the Interior Climate Change Task Force and the U.S. Geological Survey Science Strategy Team. Baron received her Ph.D. from Colorado State University in 1991, and has undergraduate and master’s degrees from Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin. She has received a number of achievement awards from the National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey, and USDA Forest Service, including the Department of the Interior Meritorious Service Award in 2002. She has been a member of the Governing Board of the Ecological Society of America, serves on several science advisory boards, has given testimony to Congress on western acid rain, and is Editor in Chief of Issues in Ecology, a publication of the Ecological Society of America that uses commonly understood language to report the consensus of a panel of scientific experts on issues related to the environment.
Presentation:
Adaptation Strategies for Public Land Managers to Climate Change
Linda Joyce
U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station Fort Collins, COLinda's area of expertise is quantitative ecology. Her recent research has focused on quantifying the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and the socioeconomic implications of this change in the forest sector. As the climate change specialist for the RPA assessment process in the Forest Service, she identifies and coordinates analysis of potential effects of global climate change on the condition of renewable resources on the forests and rangelands of the United States. Linda has contributed to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports; served as a member of the Carbon Cycle Scientific Committee, the National Institute for Global Environmental Change, and the NEON Design Consortium. Linda was a member of the U.S. National Assessment Synthesis Team that completed an assessment of the impacts of climate change on the United States. She is currently the chapter lead author for national forests in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program Synthesis and Assessment Report 4.4 Adaptation Options for Climate-Sensitive Ecosystems and Resources.
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U.S. Forest Service Large-Scale Natural Resource Assessments and Climate Change
Pete Bisson
U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Olympia, WAPete Bisson leads an aquatic research team at the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station in Olympia, Washington. He worked as an aquatic biologist for the Weyerhaeuser Company for 21 years prior to joining the Forest Service in 1995. His research has included stream habitats and food webs, riparian zone management, and a variety of conservation issues related to aquatic ecosystems. He holds affiliate faculty appointments at the University of Washington, Oregon State University, and the University of Idaho, and has served on two National Academy of Sciences committees: one on Pacific salmon and the other on watershed management. Pete is currently vice-chair of the Independent Scientific Review Panel for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, which provides guidance to fish and wildlife recovery in the Columbia River Basin.
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Nate Mantua
University of Washington Climate Impacts Group, School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, and U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research StationNathan Mantua is a research associate professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, adjunct faculty in Atmospheric Sciences and Marine Affairs, Associate Director of the Center for Science in the Earth System at the University of Washington, and a research scientist with the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. He has been a member of the university’s Climate Impacts Group since 1995. His research focuses on climate impacts on the water cycle, forests, and aquatic ecosystems, and how climate information is or isn't being used in resource management decisions.
He received a B.S. from the University of California at Davis in 1988, and a Ph.D. from University of Washington, Department of Atmospheric Science in 1994. He spent 1 year as a postdoctoral Fellow at Scripps Institute of Oceanography working on a pilot project for the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction. In April 2000, he received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for his climate impacts research and public outreach activities.
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Ron P. Neilson
U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station Corvallis, ORRonald P. Neilson is a bioclimatologist with the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station and a professor (courtesy) with the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology and the Department of Forest Science at Oregon State University. Neilson has focused on the theory, mechanisms, and simulation of vegetation distribution for over three decades. He received the Cooper Award from the Ecological Society of America for his research on oak distribution in the Rocky Mountain region. Neilson’s MAPSS biogeography model and MC1 dynamic general vegetation model have contributed to national and global assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.S. Global Change Research Program and to Our Changing Planet, the formal description of the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Neilson was the lead author for the forest sector for the IPCC’s special report on The regional impacts of climate change and the convening lead author for an annex to the special report on simulations of global vegetation redistribution under climate change. Neilson’s work with the IPCC contributed to their share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Price, along with former Vice-President, Al Gore. His current work extends into Earth system modeling, landscape system modeling and large-scale fire forecasting. Neilson received the Forest Service Chief's 1999 Honor Award for Superior Science and the USDA Secretary’s Honor Award for Superior Service in 2003. He received a BA in 1971 from the University of Oregon, an MS in 1975 from Portland State University, and a Ph.D. in 1981 from the University of Utah.
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J. Boone Kauffmann
Director, Institute of Pacific Island Forestry, U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station Hilo, HIJ. Boone Kauffman is a research ecologist and the Director of the Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry headquartered in Hilo, Hawaii. The Institute is a leading center of research, education, and demonstration on issues relating to forest restoration, wetlands ecology, invasive species, and global change in the Pacific. Prior to this position he was a professor of ecosystems ecology at Oregon State University where he maintains a courtesy faculty appointment in the Department of Fisheries and wildlife.
Boone has a lifelong research interest in ecosystems, community, disturbance, and restoration ecology. In particular, his research has centered on the influences of natural disturbances and human perturbations on ecosystem structure and function; the global influences of deforestation, land use, and wildland fire on ecosystems; the influences of land use on riparian/wetland ecosystems; and ecological approaches to restoration. He has led research projects in tropical savannas, dry forests, and evergreen forests in many locations of Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica, Africa, Micronesia, Palau, Indonesia, and Venezuela as well as in forests and grasslands of Hawaii, Guam, Oregon, Idaho, and California. Currently, he is leading research on global climate change and its consequences to both upland and mangrove forests throughout the Asian Pacific. Boone has authored over 225 scientific publications.
Presentations:
Vulnerability of Tropical Forests of the Asian Pacific to Global Climate Change
Phil Mote
University of Washington Climate Impacts Group Seattle, WAPhilip W. Mote, Washington state Climatologist, is currently directing the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute (ICCRI) and is a professor in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. This Oregon University System research institute was established in 2007 to help the state better plan for and respond to climate change. In addition to facilitating research and providing climate change information to Oregon decisionmakers, OCCRI will support the state’s Oregon Global Warming Commission, created in 2008 by Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski.
Mote is a leading authority on the impacts of climate change, including variations in Pacific Northwest and national snowpacks, sea levels, water resources, precipitation, and temperatures. He was a lead author for the fourth assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which received a Nobel Prize for its efforts.
Washington’s Climatologist since 2003, Mote also is a research scientist with the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington, where he has worked since 1998, and is an affiliate professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences. He has a Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences from the University of Washington and received his undergraduate degree in physics from Harvard University.
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Scott Fitzwilliams
U.S. Forest Service, Willamette National Forest Eugene, ORScott Fitzwilliams is the Deputy Forest Supervisor on the Willamette National Forest in Eugene, Oregon. He serves on the Pacific Northwest Region Climate Change Board of Directors and recently worked on a national communications effort for the Chief’s Climate Change strategy. Prior to coming to the Willamettte in March of 2006, Scott worked on the Tongass National Forest in Sitka, Alaska, for 5 years as the Recreation, Lands, and Minerals Staff Officer. Scott has been a district ranger on the Little Missouri National Grasslands and in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Scott started his career with the Forest Service in 1992 as a public affairs officer in Colorado and Wyoming. Scott received his Bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Wisconsin and his Masters in Environmental Planning and Policy from the University of Colorado.
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Mark Nechodom
U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station Davis, CAMark Nechodom is the Acting Deputy Director for Carbon Markets at the Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets in the US Department of Agriculture. He also serves as the Climate Science Policy Advisor for the USDA Forest Service in Washington, DC, and as a research scientist at the Pacific Southwest Research Station in Davis, California.
Dr. Nechodom is actively involved in the development of science policy and research in support of California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, or AB 32, and serves as a US Forest Service national liaison to state agencies and NGOs. He is also engaged in several national-level climate policy efforts, and represents the Washington Office of the US Forest Service in a number of state and regional climate initiatives.
His current research uses life cycle assessment modeling (LCA) to identify the economic and environmental impacts of renewable energy from biomass. He also leads teams of researchers focused on carbon cycling in forest ecosystems, including wildfire effects and greenhouse gas emissions.
He served as a senior scientist for the Sierra Nevada Framework and the Lake Tahoe Basin Science Assessment, as well as for the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency’s 20-year regional plan revision for 2007.
In the 1990s, he established the Natural Resources Policy and Education Program at California State University, Sacramento, and subsequently co-founded and directed the Land Use and Natural Resources Program at the University of California, Davis. He remains a visiting scholar and lecturer at the University of California, Davis.
Nechodom spent several years as an agricultural and environmental policy adviser, consultant and researcher in Mexico and Latin America working with clients such as USAID, the United Nations and other NGO development agencies. He earned his doctorate in political science and environmental policy from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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