Katerin Rojas

(FERM, Carlos Gonzalez-Benecke)

"My name is Katerin Rojas but you can call me Katy. I'm 23 years old and I'm from Chile. I am a student of Forestry Engineering at the University of Chile. I am in my last year very close to presenting my thesis. I come to OSU to collaborate on research projects by Dr. Carlos González Benecke on plant ecophysiology. I really love nature and it's very exciting to come and learn and participate in this project."

Agustin Cifuentes

(FERM, Carlos Gonzalez-Benecke)

"My name is Agustin Cifuentes, and I am currently pursuing a Bachelor of Natural Resources Conservation Engineering at Universidad Austral de Chile in southern Chile. I will be traveling to Corvallis as part of the Branching Borders program to collaborate on a PhD thesis and to begin work on my own undergraduate thesis. I have completed two internships in Chile, one at Servicio Agrícola y Ganadero (SAG) and the other at Ocean Spray Lanco. However, my time at OSU will mark my most immersive academic experience yet in forestry, particularly focused on Douglas fir and other species commonly used in my home country."

Lukmon Alao

(WSE, Gerald Presley)

"I am a final year student at the University of Ibadan, majoring in Wood Products Engineering. My academic journey has been marked by excellence, as evidenced by my current standing as the overall best student in my class. My proficiency extends to areas such as data analytics, machine design, and 3D furniture design. These skills have not only enriched my academic experience but also positioned me as a well-rounded engineer in my field. Looking ahead, I aspire to contribute to academia as a renowned researcher in the field of Wood and Biomaterials Engineering. My focus will be on the processing and utilization of these materials, a niche that holds significant potential for sustainable development. In essence, my journey is one of continuous learning and growth, driven by a passion for engineering and a commitment to excellence. As I transition into the next phase of my career, I look forward to making meaningful contributions to my field and inspiring the next generation of engineers."

Yuly L. Caicedo Ortiz

(FES, Matt Betts & John Alexander)

Yuly L. Caicedo Ortiz is a biologist from the University of Nariño-Colombia and a Master of Conservation and Wildlife Management from the National University of Costa Rica. She is a Colombian researcher and a member of Selva: Research for Conservation in the Neotropics. Her research is focused on migratory birds using different study techniques, including bird banding. Yuly has conducted research on migratory bird ecology, such as stopover habitat and movement routes through the Motus system in Colombia and Central America. She is happy and excited to participate in the Klamath Bird Observatory's bird monitoring and training program during her time at OSU to improve her skills and study advanced-level bird banding, bander training, bird and habitat survey methods, and project management.

Ben Howes

(FES, Matt Betts)

Ben is a PhD Student in community and landscape ecology in the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London. His research is focused on understanding how large-scale landscape changes such as deforestation and fragmentation affect ecological communities. He works with complex system models as well as big data to understand the mechanisms driving community composition change at the global level. He will be joining Dr. Matt Betts' lab to work with datasets of all taxa, looking to assess how the often-overlooked open area species are responding to fragmentation of their habitat, and how this may differ latitudinally.

Burak Aricak

(FERM, Michael Wing)

Burak Aricak is an associate professor at the Bursa Technical University in Bursa, Turkey. His scientific interests focus on forest harvesting and transportation, GIS and remote sensing applications in forestry. As a visiting scholar at OSU, he will collaborate with Dr. Michael Wing, associate professor in the FERM department, studying the effects of mechanical production tools on soil deformation. The rut depths created during the harvesting of forest products will be evaluated using high-resolution images produced by UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). More information on his research and teaching can be found at his university profile and collection of scholarly work. He hopes to identify opportunities for collaboration and open a bridge between Turkey and Oregon.

Isaac Nyarko

(WSE, Scott Leavengood)

Isaac Nyarko is a Ghanaian and a Ph.D. student at the Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague in Europe. His Ph.D. study is on Wood Processing and Forest Machinery with a focus on the analysis of the sustainability of production processes and proposal of indicators of sustainable development in the forest bioeconomy. His research aims to develop a methodology for assessing sustainability in the production chain of forestry and timber companies. He has five years of working experience in the forestry sector and is currently doing a teaching assistantship at the Department of Forestry and Building Technologies at the Czech University of Life Sciences. He also holds an M.Sc. in Forestry Engineering with a major in Tropical Forestry and Agroforestry from the same university where he is pursuing his doctorate. He is at OSU for an exchange program as a student intern and will be working with Dr. Scott Leavengood in WSE.

Fabiana Lopes de Oliveira

(WSE, Ari Sinha)

Fabiana Lopes de Oliveira is a professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. Her research is in Architectural Technology, with an emphasis on the performance of innovative construction systems and durability assessment of cross-laminated timber (CLT), which only started being manufactured in Brazil in 2012 and has only one known producer to date. As a Fulbright Scholar, her exchange at the College of Forestry will focus on multi-climatic exposure of CLT, work that is needed to foster mainstream confidence in CLT as a building material. She will be collaborating with Dr. Ari Sinha to learn about CLT production and research in the Pacific Northwest and establish the relevance of this work to growing industry interest in Brazil.

Victor Armando Sanchez Gonzalez 

(FES, John Alexander)

Victor Armando Sanchez Gonzalez is currently studying Environmental Sciences in Baja California Sur, Mexico where he is a student at the Laboratorio UABCs de Aves. Victor’s research focus is ornithology and bird conservation.  While in Oregon, Victor will be working with the Klamath Bird Observatory’s long-term monitoring and bird-bander training program where he will gain a certificate as an NABC Bander. Once he returns home, Victor hopes to assist in establishing the first banding station of land birds in Baja and use his skills gained here to work as an instructor, field trainer, and station manager. In his free time, Victor loves to spend time outdoors and  doing any activities related to nature.

Magdalena Kacprzyk 

(FERM, David Shaw)

Magdalena Kacprzyk is an assistant professor at the University of Agriculture in Krakow, Poland. Her scientific interests focus on bark beetle biology, ecology and protection in forest management. She conducts studies relating to the improvement of techniques for reducing the occurrence of harmful bark beetles pests based on innovative techniques for gender identification as well as analysis of the impact of logging residue utilization methods on the development and reproductive success of insects. The ecological aspects of her work include the impact of dead wood quality and quantity structure and fires on entomofauna biodiversity. As a visiting scholar at OSU, she will collaborate with Prof. David Shaw of FERM studying ecological perspectives of native and non-native Scolytinae in Northwest America and Poland. During her stay she will acquire knowledge in the field of ecology of invasive bark and ambrosia beetles occurring in the Northwest U.S. and Poland, their role in ecosystems, and current legislation for trade in live plants, plant protection and phytosanitary control. Her research visit will be a great opportunity to discuss of the causes and consequences of biological invasions and compare plant protection management strategies between Northwest U.S. and Poland.

Paola Torres 

(WSE, Gerald Presley)

Paola is an OSU alumna and postdoctoral researcher at Selvaceutica, a natural cosmetics company in Colombia. Her research at Selvaceutica focuses on the bioconversion of agro-industrial waste using tropical decomposition fungi and she also leads projects on circular bioeconomy and bio-based cosmetics. Additionally, Paola teaches Wood Sciences and Forest Products in the Department of Forest Engineering at the Universidad del Cauca, Colombia. She is here to work with Dr. Gerald Presley on Lignocellulolytic enzymes from tropical and temperate fungi using solid fermentation.

Stefano Alberti

(FERM, Ben Leshchinsky)

Stefano is a research fellow working with Dr. Ben Leshchinsky on geotechnical engineering and landslide mechanisms, kinematics, and dynamics. He holds a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences and Engineering Geology from the University of Milano-Bicocca, where he studied the entire process of landslide phenomena, starting from geological settings, through monitoring and mechanical characterization till the numerical modeling of several landslides, e.g. Mont de La Saxe landslide in the Aosta Valley, Italy. He also completed a period as visiting researcher at Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI) at Kyoto University, Japan and one year of researcher fellowship at Politecnico di Milano, Italy.

Jorge de Matos

(WSE, Dr. Laurence Schimleck)

Jorge Luis Monteiro de Matos is a professor of Wood Science and Technology at the Federal University of Paraná in Brazil. He is here to work with Dr. Laurence Schimleck on several projects involving searching for new value-added applications for reforested wood. Dr. Monteiro de Matos’ research focuses on wood quality, non-destructive techniques for wood quality evaluations, and the influence of genetic improvement and silvicultural and forest management on wood properties

Min Lei

(WSE, Rakesh Gupta)

Min Lei is an assistant professor of civil engineering at the Central South University of Forestry and Technology in China. Her research currently focuses on bamboo-masonry and wood-concrete composites as well as structural wood engineering. She is here working with Dr. Rakesh Gupta and is hoping to establish a partnership between OSU and her home university. They will be working on Dr. Gupta’s current program “Load paths and system behavior in wood-framed residential structures”.

Guilherme Barbirato

(WSE, Arijit Sinha)

Guilherme Barbirato is a PhD student coming to us from the Materials Engineering and Science program at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. He will be here under the supervision of Dr. Arijit Sinha in the department of Wood Science and Engineering. He will be working to characterize a composite material developed at his university using some of the specialized lab equipment and facilities here at OSU.

Xin Chen

(WSE, Eric Hansen)

Xin Chen is a Ph.D student at Northwestern Polytechnical University in China and will be here under the supervision of Dr. Eric Hansen. She is here at OSU to work on her dissertation research in the relationship between corporate social responsibility and employees performance. She hopes to promote communication on CSR research in forestry industry. 

Daun Ryu

(FERM, Woodam Chung)

Daun is a Ph.D. Student from South Korea. She will be here at OSU working with Dr. Woody Chung on a joint project between OSU and her home university, Seoul National University. The project will focus on forest vegetation simulation models and how to incorporate them into a forest planning decision-making support system. With previous degrees in Forest Environmental Science and Forest Resources, her research focuses primarily on forest mechanisms.

Qin Xiong

(FES, Steve Strauss)

Qin is an assistant professor at Nanjing Forestry University, China. Her research is focused on the molecular processes that fungi and pathogens use to establish and maintain symbiotic relationships with plant hosts, particularly how virulence proteins are secreted from pathogens to manipulate physiological processes in host cells in order to infect a host. While at OSU, she will be working with Dr. Steve Strauss in the FES Department to engineer functional genomics in poplar and eucalyptus

Ekena R. Pinagé

(FES, David Bell)

Ekena is originally from Brazil and is working on her PhD in Sciences at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. As a visiting scholar at OSU, she is collaborating with Dr. David Bell (FES Dept/USFS) and his colleagues in the Landscape Ecology, Modeling, Mapping & Analysis group regarding remote sensing of vegetation structure and composition.

Her research topic is the effects of disturbance in tropical forests structure and function. Prior to starting her PhD program, she had work experiences in the environmental area in WWF-Brazil, the Brazilian Forest Service and the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation.

Francisco Mauro Gutierrez

(FERM, Temesgen Hailemariam)

Francisco is a visiting researcher from Spain, whose main research objective is finding suitable and efficient methodologies for forest inventories assisted with remotely sensed auxiliary information. Within this broad topic, he is specially dedicated to applications of Small Area Estimation methods to forest inventories that use LiDAR as auxiliary information to derive reliable estimates for forest attributes in the BLM Owned lands of Southwestern Oregon. His personal interests include cooking, fishing, coffee, watching movies, and basketball.

Meelis Teder

(WSE, Eric Hansen)

Dr. Meelis Teder is a researcher and Fulbright scholar from Estonia. During his time at OSU, he will be collaborating with Dr. Eric Hansen to analyze foreign trade data to determine the innovativeness and competitiveness of forest and wood products industries worldwide, and to find how global or local economic crises affect the ranking results of production and trade of specific forest sector related wood-based products (e.g. coniferous sawn wood, various wood-based panels, or specific products such as pre-fabricated wooden buildings).  He also aims to further develop existing research methods in this field and to find new strategies for wood product firms in small countries with significant forest resources.

His secondary interest is related to forest policy. In his home university, he leads a survey about ongoing process of Estonian Forest Policy formulation, its innovative processes and stakeholder satisfaction, with special emphasis on the role of scientists in policy formulation. 

Kateryna Fedyna

(FES/USFS Visiting Scholar, Meg Krawchuk)

My name is Kateryna Fedyna. I'm a visiting scholar from Ukraine. I'm studying for a master's degree at the National University for Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine. Currently, I am modeling wildfires in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine. I'm exploring the burn probabilities, fire size, and fire behavior for this study area. I plan to use the data I received while at Dr. Meg Krawchuk's lab to write my PhD thesis. It is a uniquely valuable experience to be here to experience the scientific spirit and culture of scientists from another continent, sometimes from all over the world. For me, it's a pleasure to be here and work with professionals in my field.

Jürgen Bauhus

(FES, Klaus Puettmann)

Jürgen Bauhus is Professor of Silviculture at the Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources at Freiburg University, Germany, since 2003. His research focusses on structure and dynamics of forests, mixed-species forests, carbon and nutrient cycles, as well as the adaptation of forests to global change. In another role he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board on Forest Policy at the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

More information on his research and teaching can be found here: http://www.waldbau.uni-freiburg.de/mitarbeiter-en/Mitarbeiter_sammlung_en/bauhus-en

https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=tVLFX7kAAAAJ&hl=de

Gerald Page 

(FES, Chris Still)

Dr. Page hails from Australia, and has been a visiting researcher at OSU since 2017. He is a physiological ecologist who studies how plants use water and energy by combining traditional ecophysiological techniques with novel imaging methods including near-surface thermal and hyperspectral remote sensing. Gerald is particularly interested in understanding how plants survive in challenging environments. For example, how do trees cope with prolonged drought? What about infection by disease? Prior to coming to OSU, Gerald completed his PhD. at The University of Western Australia with Dr. Pauline Grierson and was a postdoc at Washington State University Vancouver with Dr. Kevan Moffett.

https://pageg.github.io/

Martín López Aguilar

(FES, John Alexander)

Martín is an undergrad student from the University of Guadalajara located in Jalisco, Western Mexico, finishing his studies in Natural Resources and Agriculture, with a focus on bird conservation and their habitats. He has also been involved in different areas of natural resources studies, such as soil conservation and forestry. 

Martin is participating in an internship with Dr. John Alexander (FES Dept) at the Klamath Bird Observatory (KBO). Martín chose to come to KBO because it is one of the best organizations that train people to do bird studies with the highest level of ethics and technics. KBO also provides the opportunity to become certified as bird banders or trainers with the North American Banding Council, the institution in charge of bird banding ethics and guidelines.

Sergio Gómez Villaverde

(FES, John Alexander)

Sergio graduated as a biologist from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Unit Xochimilco (UAM-X) in Mexico City in 2010. Previously, he has worked at banding stations in North, Central and South America, and he is now leading bird banding courses in Mexico to share his knowledge with others with the intent to promote ethical and responsible work in bird banding stations. Sergio's interests lie in bird conservation and research, and fostering a relationship in sustainability with the indigenous communities of Mexico. He has been part of his own project with a Mixteco community in the mountains of Oaxaca, sharing information of the fauna, scouting the habitat looking for birds and the memories and histories of the people who own these lands. This project aims to promote the conservation of their shaded coffee plantations, the native forests, the language and the ancient knowledge of the flora and fauna.

In 2016 he acquired his title as NABC Certified Bander. He is currently participating in an internship with Dr. John Alexander (FES Dept) at the Klamath Bird Observatory to become a NABC Certified Trainer.

Ricardo Neto

(FERM, Bogdan Strimbu)

Ricardo is a doctoral student from Brazil working with Bogdan Strimbu in the FERM department to assess the factors influencing eucalyptus production. Specifically, building artificial neural networks for modeling eucalyptus productivity and examining the impact of forest variables such as precipitation, soil, temperature, genetic material, silvicultural treatments, etc. Ricardo intends to compile his findings and submit a paper in a forestry journal.

Guoqi Xu

(WSE, Jeffrey Morrell)

Guoqi is a lecturer from China’s Northeast Forestry University. While at OSU, she is collaborating with Jeff Morrell of WSE in a major study that examines the effects of fungal attacks on composite materials, as well as biodeterioration and wood preservation in western hemlock and true firs.

Fangfang Wan

(FERM, Anthony Davis)

Fangfang is a visiting PhD student from China. She will be working with FERM Professor Anthony Davis’s research team to study larch seedling development in relation to fall fertilization. After one year of study in Oregon, she plans to return to China and finish her doctoral degree at Beijing Forestry University (BFU). She hopes to promote communication on seedling research and nursery management between OSU and BFU. 

Julia Kachanova

(FERM, Carlos Gonzalez-Benecke)

Julia is a graduate student intern from Russia and studies at the University of Padova in Italy. She is currently working as an intern this summer in Carlos Gonzalez-Benecke’s lab. She conducts field measurements of tree seedling growth, water stress, soil moisture, vegetation cover and biomass, and seedling physiology (including stomatal conductance and photosynthesis). Julia views her internship as a valuable cultural and scientific exchange, as well as a great opportunity for her to MS thesis and collect samples for a comparative analysis.

Chelsea Uggenti

(FES, Meg Krawchuk)

Chelsea is a visiting scholar from Ontario whose specialty is in forest epidemiology, fire ecology, and statistical analysis. During her time at OSU, she is collaborating with Meg Krawchuck’s lab to perform field work on Oregon’s recent burns and theorize the effects of various ecological factors and climate change on future wildfires in Canada and the Pacific Northwest. Her aim is to collaborate with OSU faculty, students, and the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station to model wildland fires through statistical analyses, and then to apply what she learns to her home wildland fire lab in Ontario. She and Dr. Krawchuk hope to identify opportunities for collaboration and open a bridge between Canadian and Oregonian wildfire labs.

Mansour Mosallanezhad

(FERM, Ben Leshchinsky)

Mansour is an Assistant Professor at the University of Shiraz, Iran. His research primarily investigates numerical and laboratory reinforced soils, similar to that of Dr. Ben Leshchinsky in OSU’s FERM Department. They are collaborating on new research about reinforced soils. Mansour hopes to use the research conducted here at OSU in future projects at the University of Shiraz. (Curriculum Vitae)