Landmark News Fall 2010

Landmark News, Volume 17 Issue 1—

Fall 2010 D E P A R T M E N T O F R E N E W A B L E R E S O U R C E S

Volume 17 Issue 1

Landmark News It is Landmark time again and a welcome oppor-tunity for me to summarize happenings in the Department of Renewable Resources since the last newsletter. Last spring I promised addition-al news on two fronts and I am pleased to pro-vide it here.

On the first front, Dr. Mike Flannigan, a long-time and internationally renowned Research Scientist who has worked with the Canadian Forest Service (CFS) has joined our staff, effec-tive 1 November 2010. This was made possible through our partnership in ‗Wildland Fire‘ developed jointly with Alberta Sustainable Re-source Development (ASRD) and the CFS. Mike is an expert in the relationships between climate and forest fire, an area in which Cana-da surely requires more strategic work and hu-

man capacity. In his new position Mike can carry on with his excellent research work and ,now also will have the opportunity to pass his knowledge and experience along to undergraduate and graduate students. In combination with Dr. Soung-Ryoul Ryu, who has now been with us for one year, the University of Alberta will have the capacity to mus-ter a high energy program in wildfire management that will take advantage of the local expertise at CFS and the generally recognized operational excellence at ASRD in this do-main. We expect that these two new recruits will provide the nucleus for a broader depart-mental initiative involving others, including recent recruits Derek Mackenzie, Simon Landhausser and Nadir Erbilgin along with more familiar faces here who are interested in natural disturbance. The goal of our partnership is to support ASRD‘s need for both sci-entific work and person-power to support their high quality efforts and to provide national leadership in this area. I emphasize that this has been some time in the making and that it would not have been possible without the creative partnership with ASRD and CFS. Now, like wildfire itself, we hope that this initiative will spread and develop into some-thing awesome to behold! You can read more about it in the following pages.

On the second front, we are able and ready to recruit a new academic in the general area of Soil Science. Right now discussions are raging about exactly what expertise we should seek. This opportunity results from the recognition that we need more depth in the soils realm and the strong support of our Dean, John Kennelly. By the next Landmark, we should have some specific news on this front and, if all goes according to plan, a new staff member in the fold. Steadily and most decidedly we rebuild our strength in the area of Soil Science by adding this position to and excellent group of recent recruits, including Drs Derek Mackenzie, Tariq Siddique and Miles Dyck. Although we were sad to have lost Gary Kachanoski to Memorial University and we will miss him, we all wish Gary well in his first term as the new President of that institution.

News from the Department Chair

Undergraduate P.2

Northern Tracks P. 3

Academic News P. 6

Academic Travels P. 11

Landmark Laurels P. 13

Alumni Trails P. 14

Graduate Student News

P.15

Contact Us P.20

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:


As you can read in what follows, we have also welcomed Mat-thew Pyper and Catalina Solero-Rivera to the department as outreach coordinators for the Alberta School of Forest Science and Management. Funding for these positions has been ini-tially provided through a legacy grant from the Sustainable Forest Management Network (SFMN), which closed its doors with the end of federal funding on 1 July. In addition to clos-ing off outstanding work of the SFMN, Matthew and Catalina have been busy in activities designed to put a face on our new School of Forest S&M. So far, their activities have included developing and delivering a course in sustainable forest man-agement for a group of foresters from Vietnam and organizing with the Canadian Institute of Forestry another set of web-based lectures, this time about the future of forestry in Cana-da. Tune into these if you are interested. Times and topics are found on our website.

Other development items of note? The first delivery of our ENCS program at Yukon College in Whitehorse is flying along under the capable guidance of Dr Fiona Schmiegelow. We anticipate that this will help us develop significant profile in the Canadian North that will assist with the growing need for human capacity there. We were part of two successful ‗international exchange‘ grants applications funded by HRSDC in recent months. The new TRANSFOR-M program involves the same European schools that we worked with in delivery of the successful TRANSFOR program (see Forestry Chronicle 86: 57-62) and is specifically focused on offering dual MScF degrees jointly between Canadian and European schools. Drs. Hamann and Lieffers are looking after develop-ment of this exciting program. The other exchange program is a new one, connecting forestry programs at several universities in Eastern Europe with Canadian partners, including us. Talk to Dr Comeau for more information about that program.

To close this epistle, let me comment about a few items stand-ard for this Chair‘s soapbox in Landmark. Meetings? Depart-ment members participated in a dizzying array for professional meetings over the past year, including the IUFRO World Con-gress in Seoul, South Korea, the Annual meeting of the Soil Science Society of America in Long Beach, CA, the Annual meeting of the Canadian Institute of Forestry in Jasper and the International Forest Education Symposium held on the UBC campus in Vancouver. By all accounts these meetings were successful for our participating staff and students. It is note-worthy that Dr Janusz Zwiazek was presented with an IUFRO Scientific Achievement Award, bringing the number of U Al-berta winners to 5. And at the CIF meeting, Vic Lieffers and Adjunct Professors Alexander and Volney were all honoured with awards in recognition of their accomplishments. One of the U Alberta teams once again took home the Canadian For-estry Quiz Bowl trophy, and our Sarah Cosgrove Bence was

recognized as Canada‘s outstanding forestry student for 2010, through the award of the Schlicht Medal. I must comment, as I did at the autumn FILS event, about how uncommonly good the CIF meeting was this year, as a re-sult of the huge efforts of the Albertan organizing team. Job very well done!! Progressions? At this fall‘s meeting of the Faculty Evaluation Committee, Andreas Hamann was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor, and awarded tenure. Andreas, Uldis Silins and Phil Comeau were all awarded sabbatical leaves for the upcoming year.

Over and out.

U of A Forestry Students Win Student Quiz Bowl

University of Alberta forestry students won the Student Quiz Bowl at the national Canadian Institute of Forestry conference in Jasper last month.

Quiz whizzes were Carleen Born, Dan Jensen, Sara Bence

and Ashley Lawson. They beat nine other teams from across the country who gathered at the very-well attended event.

Sarah Cosgrove Bence Receives Schlicht Medal

News from the Chair Cont’d

Undergraduate Student Highlights


Earlier this year, the University of Alberta formally launched a new initiative to deliver Bachelors of Science curriculum in northern Canada. The Northern Environmental and Conservation Sciences Program, a unique partnership between UofA (Faculties of ALES and Native Studies) and Yukon College, accepted its first students in January 2010, and with the addition of a few new recruits this fall, currently has 17 students enrolled and taking courses. Renewable Resources has played a lead role in catalyzing this effort.

The degree is being offered in what is commonly referred to as a ―2+2‖ program, where students do the first two years of the program at another institution—in this case, Yukon College—and the last two years while enrolled at the University of Alberta. However, the twist on this theme is that the students are able to complete their degree while remaining in the Yukon Territory. In addition, the Northern ENCS program is being customized to bolster the northern and native studies content appropriate to the context in which the degree is being offered.

Like many aspects of this initiative, the first cohort of students is not a typical group. Comprised primarily of returning professionals, most are undertaking part-time studies to complete their degrees. These mature students come from a varie-ty of backgrounds, with individuals from several branches of the federal and territorial governments, First Nations govern-ments, and the private sector. The program has been very well received, as evidenced by comments from one of the stu-dents:

―Thank you for making this program available in Whitehorse. I never expected to go back to school, but I guess things change. I have really enjoyed the courses, but classes always ended too soon. Thank you for this great experience.‖

Course delivery is also charting new territory, with students from remote campuses participating in classes through ad-vanced video-conferencing technology. While the main campus is based in Whitehorse, Yukon College has 12 community campuses located throughout the Yukon Territory. At present, students from 3 community campuses – Haines Junction, Teslin and Mayo - are part of extended UofA classrooms that take advantage of the incredible resources available through this partnership. In the near future, we hope to link the Edmonton campus with the Yukon campuses using similar tech-nology. This will enable more effective integration of resources between institutions, including virtual exchanges of in-structors, and provide additional opportunities for both partners, and most importantly the student participants, to benefit from the program.

The Northern ENCS Program is scheduled to ramp up to full-time delivery in September 2011, with the first intake of graduates directly from the Yukon College Renewable Resources Management Program, as well as programs elsewhere. Plans are also underway to offer real exchange opportunities for students, with Edmonton-based students spending residen-cy or internship time in the north, and northern students travelling south to take courses. Similar plans are afoot for scholarly exchanges of faculty between institutions.

Northern Tracks F. Schmiegelow, Director of the Northern ENCS Program


If you want to learn more about the Northern ENCS Pro-gram, you can contact me at:

[email protected] (tel: 867-668-8711).

I am located in Whitehorse, and direct the program. The program is also supported locally by a Yukon College Coor-dinator, Lisa Christensen ([email protected]). Lisa is ideally suited to this position, as she holds both an undergraduate ENCS degree, and a graduate degree focused on northern issues.

Kyoto University Exchange

At the end of August, 10 undergraduate students from Kyoto University in Japan visited the University of Alberta as part of an agriculture exchange. The trip was originally planned by adjunct professor Charlie Arshad, who has a long relationship with Kyoto Uni-versity, and the recently retired Associate Dean International, Bob Hudson.

Professors Miles Dyck, Scott Nielsen and Chokri Dridi planned the students‘ trip, which included a tour of Agri-Food Discovery Place, a look at the Highmark Renewables biogas plant and feedlot in Vegreville, and a visit to a community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm north of Edmonton. The students also traveled to Lacombe to see Agriculture Cana-da and Alberta Agriculture‘s crop development and beef production research facilities, and to Lethbridge to see intensive agriculture under irrigation.

The students noticed some major differences between Alberta and Japan. Professor Dyck pointed out that the scale of production is much, much bigger in Canada. Alberta‘s dry prairie landscape is significantly different from Japan‘s humid and mountainous terrain, and our province‘s soils were developed on glacial drift as opposed to Japan‘s which were developed on volcanic ash. The result is that different types of crops are grown in the two regions. A group of Uni-versity of Alberta agriculture students are expected to travel to Kyoto in May, 2011.

This article appeared in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences ALES Tales, August 2010.

Kyoto University and ALES stu-dents get a tour of an agricultural operation with alumnus Bern Kotelko.

mailto:[email protected]



The Department received 3 complimentary copies of Power to Grow; The Western Canadian Fertilizer Industry from author Ed Kowalenko. The author points out that if it wasn‘t for a particular chain of events the industry would not have been born in Western Canada. To quote Ed:

―If it wasn‘t for Macdonald (John A.) there probably would not have been a Canadian Pacific Railway. If it was not for the CPR there would not have been an ore smelter at Trail. If there had not been a smelter at Trail there would not have been a need for the Sullivan Mines at Kimberley. If it hadn‘t been for the Sulli-van, there would not have been any air pollution surrounding the Trail Smelter. If it hadn‘t been essential that the sulfur oxides be cleaned out …of exhaust from the smelter, there would not have been an excess of sulfuric acid. If there had not been the surplus sulfuric acid, there would have been no need to manufacture phosphate fertilizers that required sulfuric acid in the process.‖

And so was born the fertilizer industry in Western Canada. Ed Kowalenko spent his whole career with Consolidated Mining and Smelting, later Cominco. Right after retirement in 1998 he had an accident that left him a paraplegic and producing this book has been a therapeutic labour of love since.

Cominco contributed to work of the Department of Soil Science for many years by providing fertilizers for experimental plots, including the Breton Plots, and by supporting graduate student research. In early years it also provided fertilizer spreading attach-ments for our seeding equipment. The book has a short section about the Breton Plots and some of the characters involved in their initiation and operations. Of the three copies, one is to go to Cameron Library, while the other two are for staff in the Department.

Free Books!

As we continue to work towards the establishment of the Western Centre for Wildland Fire Science (WCWFC) at the Univer-sity of Alberta, we are pleased to welcome Dr. Mike Flannigan to the Department. Mike will be joining us from his posi-tion as a senior research scientist with Canadian Forest Service (CFS) at the Great Lakes Forestry Cen-tre in Sault Ste Marie. Mike's primary research interests include fire and weather/climate interactions including the potential impact of climatic change, lightning-ignited forest fires, landscape fire modelling and interactions between vegetation, fire and weather. Mike was the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Wildland Fire from 2002-2008. He has published over 150 papers during his career and has been an invited keynote or plenary speaker at major international conferences on numer-ous occasions. Mike will be working closely with Suong-Ryoul

Ryu, Alberta Sustainable Resource Development and the Northern Forestry Centre - Canadian Forest Service on the WCWFS initiative. This innovative partnership recognizes the opportunities to address priority research needs by creating a fire science hub that links ASRD and CFS with researchers at the UA and other Canadian and international research institu-tions.

Welcome Mike Flannigan


Academic News

Stefanie Gärtner, currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in Renewable Resources, was awarded the 2010 German Forest Science Award on September 22 at the Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany. This prize is awarded every two years at the German Forest Science Conference. The prize, provided by the Eva-Mayr-Stihl-Foundation, awards 15000 € to a younger forest scientist in recognition of his/her outstanding research on forest ecosystems. Stefanie was given the award for her work on the analysis of the influence of site and anthropogenic factors on vegetation, the improvement of the interdisciplinary understanding of forest ecosystems, and the facilitation of the transfer of scientific knowledge into practice. Congratulations Stefanie!

As a kid growing up in the suburbs of Montreal, Derek had a keen interest in riding his bike, playing hockey and football, and trying to stay out of trouble (although tormenting the neighbourhood French kids was always fun!). In other words, soils and plants weren‘t even on the horizon yet. It wasn‘t until college and the inevitable need for cash that led Derek to his first summer job away from home. Tree planting in BC was a job that would take him into the wild depths of the unknown (with beer). Three weeks of solid rain, sleeping in a wet tent, mired in the muck, it was at this moment that revelation struck in the form of a simple question, ‗I wonder what happens to this tree after I leave?‘

On a brighter note, this experience led to Derek‘s enrolment in the environmental geography pro-gram at Concordia University where he studied biogeography, forest ecology, and plant physiology. As a happy distraction from science courses, Derek pursued a minor in fine arts photography, but couldn‘t completely escape the influence of his science education and produced photographic ecosys-tem collections as final arts projects. Thinking about plants a little too much led Derek to another education shaping question which was ‗what are these things growing in‘? As an MSc student in the geography department at Simon Fraser University, Derek found himself answering this question by looking at mechanical site preparation, soil nutrient availability, and tree growth in the BC forest sector.

After 4 years in BC, Derek traded 2000 mm of annual rain for 500 by moving to Missoula, MT and pursued a PhD project looking at fire and nu-

trient cycling under the direction of Tom DeLuca. Tom went on sabbatical in the first year, but not before giving Derek the proverbial ‗kick in the pants‘ to get start-ed, but it worked and research has become a passion. Tom returned and the DeLu-ca lab was a very special home away from home for the cohort of 2000, leading to strong bonds, happy memories, and butt kicking research.

Since working with Tom, who is an accomplished endurance athlete himself, Derek has tried to live by the motto ‗work hard, but play harder‘ (although he has been warned that this might not work as a new tenure track prof). As such, in his free time he enjoys working out and racing with the University of Alberta Triathlon Club, mountain bike and cyclocross racing, and telemark skiing.

New Academic Staff Derek Mackenzie — Assistant Professor Soil-Plant Relations

German Forest Science Award 2010 - Stefanie M. Gärtner

Photo Credit: Dave Roberts


About 60 alumni, former professors, current faculty members and graduate students gathered at the Breton Plots for a BBQ and field day on 12 August 2010. Professor Emeritus Jim Robertson, with the assistance of Profes-sor Miles Dyck and facilities manager Dick Puurveen, led the tour. He explained that in the late 20s, University of Alberta soil scientist Frank Wyatt – who headed the Department of Soils from its inception in 1919 until his death in 1947 – and John Newton, the first faculty member Wyatt hired in 1922, were concerned with three major questions: what types of soil do we have, how fertile are they and how do we prevent serious wind

erosion? The two men wanted a permanent plot of land on which they could conduct research. In 1929, land owner Ben Flesher provided a 20-acre parcel of land near Breton, Alberta, 100 km southwest of Edmonton.

Find out more about the Breton Plots by visiting the website at http://www.ales.ualberta.ca/rr/Research/BretonPlots.aspx

Breton Plots Tour

Another IUFRO Award for Renewable Resources The International Union of Forestry Research Organizations pre-sented Janusz Zwiazek with a Scientific Achievement Award at its World Congress in South Korea in August. Zwiazek is world-renowned for his work on tree physiology, and his studies on how trees and their surrounding ecosystems recover from environmen-tal stresses. He joins a list of previous ALES winners of the Scien-tific Achievement Award: Mel Tyree, Bruce Dancik, Francis Yeh, Vic Lieffers, and John Spence.

Congratulations to Anne Naeth Anne Naeth has been appointed for another five-year term as a prestigious Vargo Teaching Chair. The Vargo Teaching Chair program was created to support University of Alberta professors demonstrating innovative and creative teaching methods which enhance undergraduate and graduate student learning. Dr. Naeth was awarded a Vargo Teaching Chair in 2006 as well, and by the end of her upcoming term, she will have held the position for 10 consecutive years.

Hamann Appointed Associate Chair (Graduate Programs) Andreas Hamann, Assistant Professor, Hardwood Genetics was appointed the Renewable Resources Associate Chair (Graduate

Programs), replacing Peter Blenis who became professor emeritus this year.

Tariq Siddique Delivers Seminar on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Tarique Siddique was invited by the School of Energy and the Environ-ment to deliver a seminar on May 12, 2010 at Stollery Executive Develop-ment Centre at U of A. The topic of the talk was ―Understanding Green-house Gas Emissions from Oil Sands Tailings Ponds and Its Implications‖.

Academic Retirements The following academic staff retired as of 1 July 2010: Peter Ble-nis, Professor of Forest Pathology and Associate Chair (Graduate Programs); Bob Hudson, Professor of Wildlife Productivity and Management and Associate Dean (International Programs); and Gary Kachanoski, Professor of Soil Physics. Congratulations and our very best wishes and thoughts to each of you!


Faculty Awards 2010 Nadir Erbilgin— Faculty Research and Innovation Award Jared LeBoldus—FGSR Graduate Student Teaching Award Bob Hudson—Distinguished Service Award National CIF Awards

National CIF awards were presented to numerous Albertans: Marty Alexander, Adjunct Professor in Renewable Resources, Canadian Forestry Achievement Award; Jan Volney (Adjunct Professor in Renewablee Resources), Canadian Forestry Scientific Achievement; Foothills Research Institute, Forest Management Group Achievement; Keith McClain, President‘s Award; Carleen Born, Universi-ty Gold Medal; Danielle Glasier, NAIT Gold Medal; Vic Lieffers, Ken Plourde and Cliff Henderson, Tree of Life awards.

University Awards

Pak Chow—2010 Support Staff Recognition Award

ASTech Award John Acorn—2010 ASTech award for Excellence in Science and Technology Public Awareness

Congratulations to all award winners!

Award Recipients

Vic Lieffers Receiving the Tree of Life Award

Jan Volney Receiving the CIF Scientific Achievement

Forest Lecture Industry Series No. 64 Held 4 November

Peter N. Duinker, Professor and Director, School for Resource and Environmental Studies and Associate Dean Research, Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University, was the speaker for the 64th Forest Industry Lecture Series. Held on 4 November, Dr. Duinker‘s talk was titled, ―Lessons from scenario analysis of Canada‘s forests and forest sector.―

KIERAN GEORGE PYPER Born 27 April 2010

Matthew Pyper and his wife Shelagh are pleased to an-nounce the arrival of their wonderful son Kieran George Pyper. Kieran was born on April 27th, 2010 and he is

happily growing and learning about the world. He loves camping and is fascinated with tasting everything within

reach!!


By Lee Foote

Experience dulls the edge of all our dogmas

Gilbert Murray (attrib.)

And it was experience that we were pursuing as the trophy of our Africa educational safari as 17 Renewable Resources stu-dents camped and studied their way around central Tanzania for 3 weeks in Au-gust 2010. Our team of instructors were Environmental Sociologist Naomi Krog-man, Montana Geologist and Biologist Jim Schulz, and me, a wetland and wildlife ecologist. The goals for the trip were to present 15 learning modules on conserva-tion, tourism, parks management, wildlife ecology, human livelihoods, land use, geology etc. each in different field settings as we moved from place to place. Our classrooms would become the shade of an acacia tree on the savanna; a National Agricultural Festival, a fishing village along a remote river; a waterfall plunge pool; a National Park thatched roof lodge; a quiet jeep in the middle of a foraging herd of elephants or a coffee plantation high on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro.

We had planned this course for months, interviewed candidates, hosted Swahili-practice suppers and arranged local experts throughout the country. We had se-cured visas, park passes, anti-malarial medications, camping gear, and vehicles and made arrangements to engage with Aga Khan University students and Sokoine University of Tanzania Forestry students so it was a relief to begin the 34-hour trip around the world and across the equator. The Canadian students took advantage of trip layovers to scamper into Frankfurt and enjoy German brats and beer (the instructors slept), then in the Addis Abbaba stop, they again shopped the markets and some took to the city. Finally arriving in Arusha, Tanzania after flying over Mounts Meru and Kilimanjaro, we headed out on a 4x4 jaunt into the Arusha National Park for bird watching (Martial Eagles! Sunbirds! Jacanas!) before beginning our camping trek to Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Manyara to meet with lion experts, and observe the mixed grazing arrangements where wildlife mixed with the colorful large-horned cattle of the Maa-sai herdsmen. We met with park personnel and learned a lot about land conversion and dry/wet season dynamics of this variable range.

We next headed south toward Dodoma and the remote Udzungwa Mountains, somewhat off the tourist trail. We camped and managed to raise a couple of good soccer scrimmag-es with local kids and adults — the FIFA world cup had just end-ed after all — and we examined the role of protected areas replete with 8 species of primates, elephants, lions and endemic birds adjacent to foreign-owned sugar cane fields over 20-km in size. We also took a 6-hour hike up to the top of Tanzania‘s tallest waterfalls through a forest filled with medicinal plants described by our guides. That evening we were joined by researchers from Sokoine University on field visits to their sustainable wetland sites to meet with local people and see multiple use wetlands.

We rode in boats, played some great campfire music (Jim Schulz is a recording artist) ate local foods (and paid for it!) did some late night dancing, ate fresh-caught fish and avocados, papaya, and coconuts fresh from the trees, went to a local church service, ex-

Viewing ancient rock art

Fording wetland stream in Kilombero

Renewable Resources Students on Conservation Course in Tanzania


amined southern star constellations, and watched hippos frolic. The next phase of the trip found us on the ocean ferry to Zanzibar Island where we took the

spice tour to see how agri-forestry produces valuable crops of black pepper, cinnamon, avocado, jackfruit, cardamom, lemongrass, coconuts and about 25 other spices and food plants. The Arab slave trade tour and historic slave market were grim reminders of earlier times. The students spent a day snorkeling on the tropical reefs of Chumbe Island, Zanzibar‘s first Marine Protected Area Park and discussing marine conservation and mangrove ecology. We traveled with foresters to examine old growth forests in the Jozani National Forest and spent an hour with the endemic colobus monkeys there.

Back on the mainland we spent two and a half days on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, some students going upslope as high as 9,000 feet through small coffee, tea and cocoa farm plots tended by Chagga tribesmen with whom we shared a traditional maize beer out of a gourd an learned how they keep their livestock inside their huts for stall feeding. The intricate irri-gation systems from the dying snowfields of Kilimanjaro sparked a pointed discussion of climate change and human livelihoods.

We considered this course to be emersion in experiential, reflective, and ex-pressive education (discussions and essays). Scholar of education, John Dewey held that life experiences influence future experiences in a continuous way of opening doors to the ability to learn new things. For many of our travelers, this trip provided insights and experiences in important life concepts like poverty, materialism, political governance, protected areas, energy equity, and sustainability of food resources, religious tolerance, and a society with low racial divisiveness. Many of the lessons that are hard to teach about in Alberta fell open easily in Tanzania. Furthermore, it was reward-ing to see new friendships blossom and an openness of discussion develop along this quest.

This trip was rewarding enough that we intend to repeat parts of it in 2011 as we travel through parts of Kenya and northern Tan-zania examining land use, the great Serengeti migration path, volcanoes, the birthplace of human-kind in Olduvai Gorge as well as the ocean environments of Zanzibar.

The University of Alberta and the Department of Renewable Resources have renewed their agreement with the Mixedwood Man-agement Association for another five year term. The MWMA has been housed by the Department of Renewable Resources since 2003.

Driven by issues of economics, productivity, biodiversity and climate change, mixedwood management is becoming increasingly attractive. In order for silviculture to embrace and capitalize on natural stand dynamics, complex processes and interactions must be understood. The Mixedwood Management Association was formed to cooperatively advance the science and management of boreal aspen/white spruce mixedwood forests. Members of the Mixedwood Management Association have committed collective research funds to develop and test practices that will sustain fibre supply, biodiversity, social and ecological values in Alberta‘s mixedwood forests. Forest industry members include Ainsworth Engineered Canada LP., Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc., Daishowa-Marubeni International Ltd., Millar Western Forest Products Ltd., Tolko Industries Ltd., Slave Lake Pulp/Alberta Ply-

Old growth forest lecture, Zanzibar

U of A Renews Mixedwood Management Association Agreement for an Additional Five Years

Conservation Course continued...


wood Ltd., Vanderwell Contractors (1971) Ltd. and Weyerhaeuser Company Ltd. The Alberta government is a supporting partner. The Association‘s goals are to increase knowledge of aspen/white spruce mixed forests in the areas of growth and yield, crop plan-ning, montoring, understory protection and decision support tools. Some of the current and recently completed MWMA sponsored projects include:

Drs Stadt and Comeau‘s ―Modeling Mid-rotation Growth and Mortality in Boreal Mixedwoods‖. This encompasses a total of 5 projects and helps support 1 Post Doctoral Fellow, 2 Doctoral candidates, a Master‘s student and an undergraduate research assistant.

Dr. Comeau‘s ―Evaluation of banding as an alternative for establishing mixedwood stands‖.

―Boreal Forest Mortality Modeling‖, Andria Dawson. Ms Dawson‘s project is part of Dr. Stadt‘s larger project; however she re-ceived additional funding from the MWMA as they were a sponsor of her MITACS scholarship.

―Benchmarking Natural Origin Stand Development‖. Drs. Macdonald, Bokalo and Stadt jointly worked on this project with Stefanie Gaertner.

―G & Y Implications of Strip Shelterwoods and Other Mixedwood Silviculture Systems for Mixed Hardwood-White Spruce Management: Enhancement of a Strata-Based Version of MGM‖. Drs. Stadt and Bokalo jointly worked on this project with Dan MacIsaac at CFS.

For more information about the Mixedwood Management Association, please contact Stacy Bergheim in the Department Renewable Resources 780-492-9092.

Academic Travels

Ellen Macdonald, Vic Lieffers and graduate student Kevin Solarik attended a conference entitled: ―Northern Primeval Forests: Ecology, Conservation & Management‖ in Sundsvall, Sweden Aug 9-13th. They each gave a talk and Kevin also had a poster presen-tation.

Tariq Siddique attended the 13th International Symposium on Microbial Ecology in Seattle, Washington, USA from August 22-27 presenting the research on methane production with microbial degradation of hydrocarbons. The titles are as follows:

Methane production in oil sands mature fine tailings generated by different extraction processes (Siddique, T., Li, Carmen, and Foght, J.; Department of Renewable Resources and Department of Biological Sciences)

Microbial communities involved in methanogenic hydrocarbon biodegradation in oil sands tailings (Foght, J., Semple, K., and Siddique, T.; Department of Biological Sciences and Department of Renewable Resources)

Anne Naeth, David Chanasyk, Simon Landhäusser and Al Jobson recently participated in the 1st International Conference on Structures and Processes of the Initial Ecosystem Development and the 4th Meeting of Young Researchers in Earth Sciences (MYRES) held in Cottbus, Germany September 20-24. The meetings were co-hosted by Brandenburg Technical University in Cott-bus, the Technical University of Munich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich. David presented a paper, co-authored by Anne, entitled ―Soil water regimes of reclaimed soils into eh Alberta Oil sands‖, while Simon presented a paper with several co-authors, entitled ―Impact of substrate and microsite conditions on seedling establishment of two populous species‖. Anne chaired one of the MYRES sessions on ―initial development of vegetation patterns and biocoenoses‖ and gave a keynote presenta-tion. Al participated in this workshop and led some small group discussions. David attended the 3rd workshop on hydrologic model prediction on Chicken Creek (constructed 5.9 ha watershed on mined land near Cottbus). The conference was international with speakers from Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, numerous German institutions, Italy, Poland, Romania, Switzerland and the USA. The week culminated with a meeting and workshop co-chaired by Anne, with our German collaborators of the Helm-holtz Alberta Initiative (HAI); David and Al participated as well. Strategic plans were developed for the HAI collaboration.


In mid-May David Chanasyk participated in an on-site accreditation visit to King Saud University (KSU) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, specifically the College of Food and Agricultural Sciences, containing eight departments. The accreditation was being conducted by the Agricultural Institute of Canada, with a 4-person review team. David was responsible for leading the review of two Departments: Soil Science and Agricultural Engineering. Several field facilities were toured. KSU has implemented an interesting Preparatory Year wherein students admitted to the university in a specific group of colleges are grouped together and spend their first year together, in a building devoted just to them. David highly recommends the dates!

On 4 June 2010 Robert Grant was an external examiner for a PhD thesis defense at the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Göteborg Sweden on 4 June 2010. During his visit to Sweden he gave lectures on his research into forest C exchange at the Department of Land and Water Resources Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm and at the Dept. of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Univ. of Gothenburg, Göteborg. Robert and one of his postdocs from his research group gave a presentation at the European Geosciences Union Annual General Meeting in Vienna, Austria 3-7 May 2010. From 13-15 April 2010, Robert was an invited speaker on modelling the effects of atmospheric warming on crop growth at the 40 th annual general meeting of the Biological Systems Simulation Group, Phoenix, AZ, in association with a global warming project He is working on with staff from the U.S. Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center in Phoenix, AZ. February 2010‘s (3-4th) travels took him to Switzerland where he was an invited speaker on modelling N2O emissions from fertilized agricultural fields at the Ni-troEurope Open Science Conference. Solothurn, Switzerland. That trip was followed with a visit to the Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon, Research Station ART Air Pollution and Climate Group in Zurich, Switzerland, where he is working with several research scientists on N balances in agricultural fields. A postdoc from this group visited his lab for a couple of weeks this past summer. Rob-ert, two postdocs and a graduate student from his research group gave a presentation at the Canadian Carbon Program Annual General Meeting in Montreal, QC from 26-28 February 2010. Graduate student Seung-Il Lee, PDF Anne Oxbrough, John Spence and Janusz Zwiazek all attended the IUFRO World Congress held in Seoul, South Korea 23-28 August. The Congress theme was ‗Forests for the Future: Sustaining Society and the Environ-ment‘ and it drew in enthusiastic participation from >2600 scientists and forest policy makers from 92 different countries mak-ing it the largest IUFRO Congress ever held. Janusz picked up his IUFRO Scientific Achievement Award and Seung-Il and Anne both presented formal papers in a technical session entitled ‗Conservation of Arthropods on Forested Landscapes‘ that John had organized on behalf of IUFRO Section 7. Glen Armstrong, Phil Comeau, Fangliang He, Vic Lieffers, John Spence, Francis Yeh and graduate student Jaime Pinzon all at-tended the 2nd International Symposium on Forestry Education held on the UBC campus May 17th -21st. Francis made a formal presentation about the joint undergraduate programs that we have entered into with several universities in China and Fanliang and John co-authored a paper with Shirong Liu, VP of the Chinese Academy of Forestry, about our developing cooperation in research and graduate education. John Acorn, Stephane Bourassa, Anne Oxbrough, John Spence, graduate students Evan Esch, James Glasier, Seung-Ill Lee, Jaime Pinzon, Charlene Wood and undergraduate student Caroline LeCourtois all participated in the Annual Meeting of the Entomo-logical Society of Alberta, held at the Coast Hotel in Lethbridge. All made presentations at the meeting and Caroline won this year‘s award for outstanding undergraduate work in Entomology. This year‘s meeting featured a joint symposium with the Plant Protec-tion Society of Alberta and entitled ‗Arthropod-Pathogen Interactions‘. As usual this meeting provided a wide overview of entomo-logical activities in the province and underscored the fact that oftentimes unbelievably interesting things are happening right under your nose and in your very own backyard. In this forum, the enthusiasm of genuine joint interests in specialized topics is invigorat-ing for those ‗in the groove‘. Sylvie Quideau and Scott Chang attended the Soil Science Society of America Annual Meetings in Long Beach, CA, Oct 31-Nov 4. Sylvie gave an invited presentation in a symposium on ―Soils of Reclaimed Landscapes: Recycling, Renewing, and Reusing De-pleted Environments.‖ Kangho Jung (PhD student), Scott Chang and Charlie Arshad also received a best poster award for their presentation titled ―Effects of canopy deposition interactions on H+ supply to soils in Pinus banksiana and Populus tremuloides ecosys-tems in the Athabasca oil sands region of Alberta, Canada‖ in one of the Forest Soils Technical sessions. Scott chaired a session in S3 on Soil Carbon, Nitrogen and GHG Fluxes during the SSSA annual meeting.

Academic Travels continued...


Landmark Laurels

I can‘t really remember where or when I first met Derek. It could have been any-where really: the swimming pool, a bike race, a potluck, the pub. The point is that we met somewhere, and it was not in class, nor in a seminar, nor the halls of the department. For our lives did not cross paths because of academics, but rather because of our mutual interests in all things non-academic. We only realised our mutual academic interests later.

I suspect we first chatted on the pool deck at a swim practice with the UofA Triath-lon Club. Now, we‘re used to having some old guys around the Tri Club as we have a few faculty members who attend our workouts. But if you‘ve ever met Derek, you know that nobody would ever put him in the category of ―old faculty guy‖. The man couldn‘t act or look old, even dressed in a yoda costume playing checkers in the park starting every sen-tence with ―back in my day...‖

No, Derek has a refreshing youthfulness about him that I deeply appreciate. In fact, I recall being seriously sceptical when he told me that he was a prof in the Re-newable Resources department. It went something like:

Dave: ―So Derek, what are you studying?‖ Derek: ―I‘m actually a soil science prof.‖ Dave: ―Ha! No, seriously. Who‘s your

supervisor.‖ Derek: (awkward) ―Um, I have my own grad students.‖ Dave: (laughing harder) ―Come on Derek, quit foolin‘ yo. When do you expect to defend your thesis?‖

And so on...

You see, I was naive. How could this guy who constantly talked about epic cycling adventures, triathlon racing, and back-country ski trips be just another crusty faculty member? My world-view was col-lapsing, thanks to Derek.

And so it went.

Over the next few years, I had the distinct pleasure to get to know Derek and his very nice (and absolutely hilarious) wife Jen. I‘ve seen Derek continue his enthusi-asm for triathlon by regularly competing in races throughout Alberta, as well as becoming involved with the administra-tion of the UofA Triathlon Club. He has also began to compete in provincial cy-cling races, both mountain biking and cyclocross (which is the cycling equivalent of steeplechase, both in ridiculousness and overall pain and suffering).

When the snow flies, Derek takes to his skis. But, like any self respecting skier, refuses to secure his heels down. While I was originally sceptical of his telemark abilities (enter Derek‘s modesty), I was deeply impressed with his ability to lay down smooth turns all day (long after my legs had given up!). Equally at home on the flats as on the hills, Derek spends winter evenings on the ski trails at Gold Bar Park or Blackfoot, and even complet-ed the Canadian Berkebeiner last year!

Between biking in circles, playing in the snow, and tending to his barbecue, Derek has managed to get some work done also. He completed his PhD and a post-doc at the University of Montana, researching fire-nitrogen relations in ecosystems. The

UofA got a hold of him afterwards for a post-doc and he recently took the position of Assistant Professor in our department. He studies soil-plant relations and has an enthusiastic group of graduate students working with him. With an ever-growing publication list and several classes on the horizon, the department was clearly lucky to get him onboard. Though the rumour is that it took a ‗snow-day‘ and ‗free bikes‘ clause in the contract to get him to sign.

In a nutshell: Derek‘s the kind of guy who is up for anything and will challenge him-self constantly. He is successful at what he takes on, but deeply modest and refresh-ingly down-to-earth. He also has an amaz-ing ability to bring a room to tears with laughter, in ten words or less.

It‘s been my pleasure to get to know Derek over my past few years at the UofA, and I‘m looking forward to more of his enthusiasm in the future. Thanks Derek!

Dave Roberts


Alumni Profile

Juanita Spence, BSc ‘01, Environmental and Conservation Sciences

Child/Youth Education Program Manager Juanita Spence graduated in 2001 with a BSc in Environmental & Conservation Sciences, Conservation Biology.

Shortly after graduating in 2001, Juanita began employment with the City of Ed-monton as a Natural History Interpreter at the John Janzen Nature Centre and Edmonton Valley Zoo. It was intended to be a summer job... but she has never left!

During the summer of 2002 Juanita took on a supervisory position, supervising the natural history interpreters and the programs they were implementing, which she continued for two years. At the start of 2005 she took a big step and accepted the position of Child/Youth Education Program Manager for the Community Facility Services Branch. In this role she manage the educa-tional programs for John Janzen Nature Centre, Edmonton Valley Zoo, Mut-tart Conservatory, Fort Edmonton Park, John Walter Museum and City Archives. This is the role she continue in today – and loves it!

The focus of Juanita‘s work is on environmental and historical interpreta-tion in a structured programming environment to which the foundations for her work were gained during her University course work. Juanita‘s team is responsible for the implementation of approximately 3000 school, group, birthday party and day camp programs. During peak operations she has

approximately 40 staff and 80 volunteers making all this possible.

When reflecting on her life, Juanita explains, ―I‘m not surprised that I‘ve chosen this career path. I grew up spending summers camping in the mountains and always took in the interpretive programs within Parks. I‘ve always had a love for animals and nature and even did my Junior High job shadow at the Zoo. While I love all the work that I do, I have developed a particular passion for the Zoo and Nature Centre. It even feeds into our family life... during a recent family vacation we visited five zoos/aquariums and two nature centres!‖

Juanita‘s hobbies include camping, birding, bird banding with the Beaverhill Bird Obser-vatory including songbirds and raptors.

On a personal note, Juanita met Bryn Spence while working at the Zoo & Nature Centre in 2001. They were married in 2006 and have one daughter, Adilyn, born in 2009. They live in Edmonton with a dog, two cats and a dove.


Welcome! Welcome new graduate students starting in September and Janu-ary.

September Name Degree Supervisor

Seyedeharezoo Amini MSc Mackenzie Andre Christensen MSc Dyck Catherine Collins MSc Siddique Min Duan PhD Chang Benoit Gendreau-Berthiaume PhD Macdonald Jason House MSc Chang Courtney Hughes MSc Foote Hyejin Hwang MSc Ryu Ghulam Jamro PhD Chang Kirk Johnson MSc Comeau Joan Laur PhD Hacke Jinhu Liu PhD He Jerrod Looft MSc Foote Jillian Martin MSc Mackenzie Yannick Neveux MSc Schmiegelow Kaitlin Schott MSc Landhausser Holly Stover MSc Naeth Lei Sun PhD Feng/Chang Mike Tribes MSc Schmiegelow Owen Watkins MSc Foote

Graduate Student News

Congratulations on successful defenses

Graduate Awards Congratulations to all students who received the following awards and scholarships:

Gendreau-Berthiaume, Benoit—Al Bren-nan Memorial Graduate Scholarship in Forestry at the University of Alberta

Archibald, Heather—WorleyParsons Infrastructure and Environment Graduate Scholarship in Soil Sci-ence at the University of Alberta

Blanchet, Guillaume—QE II Scholarship-doctoral Gray, Laura—QE II Scholarship-doctoral Kneteman, Kelly—NSERC Industrial Postgraduate

Scholarship Ferster, Fran—QE II Scholarship-Masters Gainer, Amy—QE II Scholarship-Masters Glasier, James—QE II Scholarship-Masters Ives, Kimberley—QE II Scholarship-Masters MacPherson, Laura—QE II Scholarship-Masters Clare, Shari—John and Patricia Schlosser Environ-

ment Scholarship Slater, Simon—NSERC Industrial Postgraduate

Scholarship Sorenson, Preston—Profiling Alberta's Graduate Stu-

dents Award Turner, Elizabeth—NSERC IPS Ayton, Kelsey—NSERC IPS Schoonmaker, Amanda—Profiling Alberta's Graduate

Students Award Snedden, Jessica—Profiling Alberta's Graduate Stu-

dents Award Solarik, Kevin—Profiling Alberta's Graduate Students

Award Hahn, Aria—Walter H John's Fellowship Coogan, Sean—Walter H John's Fellowship Archibald, Heather—Walter H John's Fellowship Fair, Jordana—Walter H John's Fellowship Kartz, Cory—Walter H John's Fellowship Clare, Shari—President's Doctoral Prize of Distinc-

tion McGregor, Andrea—President's Doctoral Prize of

Distinction Hossain, Kazi—Herbert and Jeannette Hall Graduate

Scholarship in Forestry Sun, Lei—Provost Doctoral Entrance Award Liu, Jinhu—Provost Doctoral Entrance Award

Name Date Degree Supervisor Suzanne Abele 7Aug MSc Macdonald/Spence Patrick Asante 8 Oct PhD Armstrong/Adamowicz Richard Caners 30 June PhD Macdonald/Belland Virginia Chavez 20 Aug PhD Macdonald Alana Clason 15 July MSc Macdonald Lindsay (Jessie) Colgan 21 July MSc Erbilgin Matthew Conrod 28 July MSc Armstrong Varina Crisfield 9 July MSc Macdonald Jocelyn Howery 10 Sept MSc Silins David Kamelchuk 24 Mar MSc Zwiazek/Thomas Jared LeBoldus 9 Sept PhD Blenis/Thomas Michael Mbogga 30 June PhD Yeh/Hamann Kevin Solarik 26 July MSc Lieffers Michael Wagner 8 Sept MSc Silins Zheng Shi 7 July MSc Chang/Thomas


Damián is originally from Argentina, the land of gauchos, tango and good wine. His profes-sional interests have always revolved around biology, but something about trees has long capti-vated him particularly. Although few native trees inhabit his native pampas, he began working on planted Eucalyptus forests during his undergraduate degree at the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. He left his home to accompany his true love and wife ―Ale‖, a biologist who had recently re-ceived her Ph.D., to pursue her scientific career in the U.S.A. at the University of Maine. With time on his hands, he enrolled at UMaine where he completed his Master‘s degree in forestry. He was later accepted in a Ph.D. programme to work in space biology at Miami University, but his dream of a green space colony was cut short when funding came to a stand-still due to a political decision from the Bush administration. He took this as an opportunity to go back to forestry and, with most of his course work completed, he came to the U of A where he started a project to work on tree water relations under the supervision of professors Mel Tyree and Vic Lieffers. Here, he has developed a high-resolution whole-plant transpiration monitoring system which he is currently using as a tool to study various aspects of nutrition and water relations in poplar. ―It has been quite a journey so far, and the best is yet to come... I‘m excit-ed to see where this goes‖, he tells us while pondering questions of plant transpiration. His system is revealing interactions of noctur-nal transpiration and nutrient acquisition which, up until now, have been ‗in the dark‘ in plant science. When asked about his interests outside of school, he replied ―Ha! I have way too many! I hardly know any free time though, as most

grad students will know right? Nevertheless, I used to be a musician in a distant past and that is still a huge part of me and I‘m always looking for people to play music with. I collaborate on music projects over the Internet with a long time friend back home. My other great passion is fly fishing. I‘m pretty lucky to be in Alberta in this regard, you can‘t beat mountain stream fishing‖. One thing Alberta cannot cure is his ocean blues. A surfer in his hometown, he longs for the swell which he pays tribute to by longboarding the Edmonton flats.

Meet our Graduate Students

PhD Candidate ...Damián Cirelli


Krista is working on her MSc under the supervision of Drs. Scott Niel-sen and Shelley Pruss. She is originally from Regina and has made the Masefield community pasture near Grasslands National Park her home for the past few years. While completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Regina, she studied how a recent smooth brome invasion along a creek changed soil moisture regimes and understory plant species composition along a prairie creek. She became interested in conservation biology while working as a field assistant at Grasslands National Park. This later led to employment as species-at-risk monitoring technician where she first began working with her future study species, the Greater

short-horned lizard. Krista‘s research focuses on predicting occurrence of the Greater short-horned lizard in southwest Saskatchewan. Specifically, she is interested in defining a landscape-scale predictive model of Greater short-horned lizard habitat. She is also fascinated by thermal patch selection at the far northern extent of this shuttling ectotherm‘s range. While her research goals may seem exciting, the field work required can be tedious. Greater short-horned lizards are very small, are shaped like rocks, and hold motionless until the very moment their lives are threatened by a hiking boot. This past summer, Krista and her field assistant searched nearly 1000 km of random walk transects in Grasslands National Park and found 118 Greater short-horned lizards. Considering that the search speed averages two km/h, they found roughly one lizard for every four person hours searched! Once a lizard was located, the thermal char-acteristics of the location were capture with a thermal imaging camera. The images will be used to identify the unique thermal char-acteristics at selected locations that make it possible for Greater short-horned lizards to live in a northern climate. In addition to searching Grasslands National Park for Greater short-horned liz-ards, Krista searched approximately 300 km in the Val Marie community pasture without finding a single lizard. In fact, all she found were cows, golden eagles, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, rattlesnakes, and cowboys. With all the field work out of the way, Krista is settling into analyzing data and writing the first chapter of her thesis. When she‘s not analyzing and writing in Edmonton, she likes to spend time back home with family, friends, and her horse Buck.

MSc Candidate ...Krista Fink

Tammy Frunchak—Welcome to Tammy who joined our Administrative Team in mid June as interim Main Office Secretary in the GSB office. Tammy has worked on campus for over 16 years.


In both Canada and Europe forests provide lumber and fibre and contribute to the economy but also provide important ecological and social services. Forests sequester carbon, help to clean the air, protect soils from erosion, protect villages from landslides, provide important habitat for game and wildlife, are visually ap-pealing, are dominant in major watershed areas, are considered highly desirable for recreation, serve as a source for non-timber products, and provide other ser-vices and values. Throughout Europe forests are highly valued for aesthetics, rec-reation, habitat, and a broad range of other environmental services.

While forest management serves a wide variety of purposes, provision of these environmental services is a primary concern for forest management in Western Europe. In Canada, forests have more typically been viewed as a source of fibre and lumber, but with substantial attention being paid to the conservation of non-timber resources. Economic and social pressures will cause continued increases in and attention to the provision of a broader range of social and ecological services from Canadian forests. Given a longer history of forest management in Europe, and more experi-ence with the management of forests for multiple purposes, there is substantial opportunity for Canadian students in forestry and conservation sciences to gain valuable knowledge from a transatlantic exchange program.

The goal of our recently approved Canada-EU Transatlantic Exchange Project ―Managing and Conserving Forests for Multiple Val-ues‖ (MANCAFOR) is to provide students with a broad and comprehensive understanding of forest resources, issues, and opportuni-ties and approaches for managing forests for a broad range of values. This will to develop skills needed to practice sustainable forest management. This partnership will enhance mutual understanding of issues and solutions, will provide experiential learning oppor-tunities and training for students and enhance collaboration and exchange between the participating Canadian and European Uni-versities. The six partner institutions in this project are the Univ. of Alberta, Vancouver Island Univ., Univ. Laval, Georg-August University Gottingen, Czech Univ. of Life Sciences, and Univ. of Transylvania.

Over the 3 year duration of this project (2010-2013) 21 Canadian and 21 European students will participate in long term (1 semester/term of study) placements and 30 Canadian and 30 EU students will be involved in 3 week exchange tours. This program is open to under-graduate and graduate students studying in any area relating to forest-ry and forest conservation science at the University of Alberta. Dur-ing the summer of 2011 a group of Canadian students will be visiting Germany (August 13 to Sept. 2) and a group of European students will visit western Canada for 3 weeks.

Up to $3,000 per term is available to assist with travel and living ex-penses for each U of A student studying at one of the 3 partner insti-tutions in Europe for one term (4 months) under this exchange pro-gram. Students will pay U of A tuition, and will be responsible for obtaining advance approval of courses from their program advisors.

For more information please contact: Phil Comeau at [email protected]

Managing Forests for Multiple Values

Bavarian Alps. Photo Credit: Cristian Ammer

Young Beech forest in Germany. Photo Credit: Cristian Ammer



From the vault to the landscape: communicating our research

Let‘s work to form strong partnerships with policy makers, land managers, and the general public! That‘s the message we touted in a recent seminar we gave on the opportunities and challenges of communicating research in the School of Forest Science and Management. As part of the seminar, we laid out 4 fundamental goals that we have for the School with respect to getting our message out: 1) Engaging partners in the research process; 2) Being inten-tional with our partnerships; 3) Recognizing our audience; and 4) Focusing on the implications of our research when we communicate with partners.

To some, these values might appear daunting or of no interest to an academic institution. However, we believe that they are fundamental to achieving goals of communicating science beyond peer-reviewed journals, and positioning the School as an active scientific voice in Alberta, and hopefully, Canada as a whole. We also believe that regardless of our scientific viewpoint, we all have a desire to make a difference, and we want to see our science utilized to solve many of the worlds ‗wicked problems‘.

This belief system is at the core of a new initiative we are working on in the School. That initiative is the creation of a ‗Knowledge Exchange Program‘ that works with researchers to communicate and share messages with partners and the general public. The vi-sion for our program is: ―Facilitating learning to inspire change‖, a vision that represents the core values that we hold.

So what are we doing to get this program off the ground?

1) Creating a brand for our products. This is essential to enable our partners to instantly recognize the documents and events developed by the School.

2) Developing publications to share the message of our researchers. This includes a ‗Research Note‘ series consisting of non-technical publications for partners, and the dissemination of information to media sources.

3) Organizing events, like short-courses that showcase the cutting edge research in the School, and an electronic lecture series on the future of forestry in Canada.

4) We are available to our researchers to help facilitate partnerships, identify partner priorities for research projects, and ensure that results are efficiently communicated to partners.

We believe that knowledge exchange is essential, and we are here to make that job easier for our researchers and students by provid-ing help and guidance. We are genuinely excited to be a part of this new program, and we request the help of researchers and part-ners to get it off the ground. So come and visit us at 771 GSB. We promise to greet you with a smile and some great ideas to get your message out!

Matthew Pyper and Catalina Solano-Rivera


Excellence in the discovery, dissemination and application

of knowledge about natural and managed ecosystems

We’re on the Web!

www.ales.ualberta.ca/rr/

This newsletter is published twice a year, distributed to staff and students

within the Department of Renewable Resources and included on the department website.

For copies and/or contributions, please contact the Interim Editor, Judy Huck at

[email protected]; phone 492--8621.

Submissions for the next issue of Landmark should be sent in by March 31, 2011.

Department of Renewable Resources University of Alberta

751 General Services Building Edmonton, AB T6G 2H1

Phone: 780-492-8621 Fax: 780-492- 4323

Email: [email protected]

Kyler Miles Hove Born September 4, 2010 at 4:02

am 8 lbs 10oz, 22 inch long

Congratulations to Nicole Kent and Sean Hove on the birth of

their son Kyler!

Miles with the smiles!

Susan and Mark Humphries are pleased to announce the birth of their baby boy on April 26th. His name is Miles Owen Humphries and he weighed in at a healthy 7lbs 2oz and was 21" long. He's such a happy little man that they call him "Miles with the smiles‖!

Landmark News Fall 2010

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Transcript of Landmark News Fall 2010