2014 Accomplishment Highlights

Center Accomplishments At-A-Glance

Refereed and non-refereed publications -- 104

Scientific, educational, professional, and lay organization presentations and tours -- 173

International, partnership, and consultation activities -- 97

Cultural Transformation, outreach, and technology transfer activities -- 96

Awards and Honors -- 9

Right: Eastern Threat Center biological scientist Michael Gavazzi assists a student with a tree coring activity following a presentation to an environmental science class.

Research, Science Delivery, and Partnership Highlights (Click for complete list and summaries.)

International Activities

Center scientists and collaborators continue to expand research and partnership opportunities globally:

• Through a Letter of Intent with the Canadian Forest Service, conducted research related to cross border modeling of pest risk and other forest threats, resulting in several published papers and presentations.
• Presented current and potentially impactful research on the topic of urban forest health in Malmo, Sweden.
• Chaired a committee drafting a constitution and establishing a formal leadership structure for the International Pest Risk Mapping Workgroup (IPRMW) and presented US research results to IPRMW in Canberra, Australia.
• Served as the International Union of Forest Research Organization’s (IUFRO) Landscape Ecology Workgroup Deputy Coordinator for North America.
• Served as president of the US Regional Association of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (US-IALE) and coordinating editor for the IALE flagship journal Landscape Ecology.
• Organizing the 2016 Annual Meeting of the US-IALE.
• Through an extended Memorandum of Understanding with the European Commission, provided expert advice regarding landscape and land cover pattern analysis, provided custom software for inclusion in Joint Research Center software, and organized a symposium for the 2014 IUFRO World Congress.
• Organized a training workshop on watershed science for graduate students in Beijing, China.
• Presented research on ecosystem modeling at a National Science Foundation-sponsored symposium on ecosystem services in Wuhan, China, and organized an ecohydrology lecture series in Nanjing, China.
• Presented research on ecosystem water resources modeling at the 9th Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems held on the sea between Venice, Italy, and Istanbul, Turkey.
• Collaborated with Turkish researchers to produce national eco-climatic regions and design a set of sampling locations for a new National Ecological Monitoring Network for Turkey.
• Collaborated with the International Institute for Tropical Forestry to translate subtitle captions to Spanish for a ForWarn training webinar.
• Served as a grant reviewer for the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and the Romanian National Development and Innovation Council.
• Organized an international symposium, “Evapotranspiration: Challenges in Measurement and Modeling from Leaf to the Landscape Scale and Beyond,” and contributed research presentations and field tours.

Awards and Honors

Center researchers, collaborators, and support teams were honored for outstanding efforts, including:

• Forest Service Chief’s Honor Awards for Sustaining Forests and Grasslands and Excellence in Science and Technology
• Southern Research Station Director’s Awards for Partnership and Science Delivery
• Outstanding Paper in Landscape Ecology Award from the US-IALE
• Certificate of Appreciation for service as US-IALE president
• Best Student Poster and People’s Choice Awards from the Intertribal Timber Council National Indian Timber Symposium
• First Place Award for Northern Arizona University’s 3 Minute Research Presentation Student Competition

Right: Eastern Threat Center research ecologist Bill Hargrove accepts the Chief's Honor Award for Sustaining Forests and Grasslands on behalf of the interagency ForWarn team. Pictured left to right: Forest Service Associate Chief Mary Wagner, Hargrove, Chief Tom Tidwell, and Chief of Staff Tim DeCoster.