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Featured Speakers
PLENARY SPEAKERS |
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Bob Barbee, Retired Yellowstone National Park Superintendent, National Park Service. Bob Barbee was the Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park during the 1988 fires. Following a stint in the US army, a BS and MS in Natural Resource Management from Colorado State University, Bob embarked on a career in the National Park Service. Starting as a seasonal ranger in Rocky Mt. National Park Bob served in Yosemite NP, Carlsbad Caverns NP, Point Reyes National Seashore, Big Bend N.P, Cape Lookout National Seashore, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Hawaii Volcanoes N.P., Redwood NP and Yellowstone NP. He retired from the Director of Alaska National Park units after 42 years of service. He and his wife Carol have three daughters and seven grand children and make their home in Bozeman, Montana. |
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Dr. Norm Christensen PhD., Professor of Ecology and Founding Dean of the Nicholas School, Environmental Sciences & Policy, Duke University. His research focuses on the effects of disturbance on structure and function of populations, communities and ecosystems. On going studies include an analysis of patterns of forest development following cropland abandonment as these are affected by environment, stand history and plant demographic patterns. He and his students are pursuing comparative studies of ecosystem responses to varying fire regimes across temperate North America. He is conducting research on the utilization of remote sensing systems such as synthetic aperture radar to evaluate long-term changes in forest ecosystems. In addition to these interests in basic ecological science, Christensen has written widely on the importance of natural disturbance in the management of forests, shrublands, and wetlands. |
| Orville Daniels, Retired Supervisor of the Lolo National Forest, US Forest Service | |
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Dr. Mike Flannigan is a senior research scientist with Canadian Forest Service (CFS) at the Great Lakes Forestry Centre in Sault Ste Marie. He received his BSc (Physics) from the University of Manitoba, his MS (Atmospheric Science) from Colorado State University and his PhD (Plant Sciences) from Cambridge University. Dr. Flannigan’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 (peat in particular), fire and weather. Mike is the former Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Wildland Fire. |
| Steve Frye, Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation | |
| Andy Hansen, PhD., Ecology Professor, Montana State University- Bozeman, MT | |
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Dr. Mark Hebblewhite is Assistant Professor in Ungulate Habitat Ecology in the Wildlife Biology Program in the University of Montana. He has conducted research on wolves, their prey and habitats since 1994, as well as a variety of terrestrial vertebrates across Canada, Europe, and Asia. Mark obtained his Bsc in 1995 from the University of Guelph, his Masters in Wildlife Biology in 2000 at the University of Montana and his PhD in Ecology in 2006 in the Department of Biological Science at the University of Alberta. Mark was awarded the Canon-National Parks Science Scholarship for the Americas in 2003, and was an NSERC post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia. He is presently engaged in research on the effects of fire on wildlife dynamics for moose, elk, sierra Nevada bighorn sheep, wolves and caribou in and adjacent to National Parks. Mark is an avid backcountry skier, hiker, and neophyte triathlete. |
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Dr. Tom Swetnam is a forest ecologist and tree-ring scientist. He studies the long-term history of forest fires, insect outbreaks, and the effects of climate change on forest and woodland ecosystems. He has studied forests throughout the western United States, and he has carried out collaborative research in northern Mexico, Alaska, Argentina, and Siberia. He received his B.S. degree from the University of New Mexico in 1977 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Arizona in 1983 and 1987 respectively. Dr. Swetnam’s research was recognized by the Ecological Society of America’s W.S. Cooper Award (2001), and the American Association of Geographer’s Henry Cowles Award (2002). He was appointed by President Clinton to the Board of Trustees of the Valles Caldera National Preserve (2000-2004) and by Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to her Climate Change Advisory Group (2005-2006), and Forest Health Advisory Council (2003-2006). As Director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research Dr. Swetnam works with interdisciplinary faculty, staff, and students to maintain the excellence of this premier and largest laboratory in the world dedicated to the use of tree rings in the study of environmental and cultural change. |
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Alfredo Nolasco Morales, Program Coordinator for The Nature Conservancy’s México Fire Management Program. He acts as a counterpart to the National Forestry Commission and the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas in Mexico to stimulate fire management approaches that have ecological and social perspectives throughout Mexico. He is also part of The Nature Conservancy’s Global Fire Team working throughout Latin-American to promote integrated fire management concepts. Mr. Morales is a forestry engineer; he graduated from the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo in México in 1986. Professionally he has considerable experience in the suppression of large scale wildland fires and emergency fire management in the tropics of Mexico. |
| Monica Turner, PhD., Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Monica G. Turner is the Eugene P. Odum Professor of Ecology in the Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. A native New Yorker, she earned her BS in Biology from Fordham University and her PhD in ecology from the University of Georgia. She is currently co-editor in chief for the journal ECOSYSTEMS and serves on the editorial boards of BIOSCIENCE, LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY and the QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY. In 2004, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Turner has a long-standing interest in studying natural disturbances and has conducted research in Yellowstone since 1988. Research by Turner, with her collaborators and students, has addressed the effects of fire on vegetation, carbon and nitrogen dynamics; movement patterns and habitat use by elk; interactions between fire and bark beetles; and implications of climate change. | |
| John Varley, Executive Director, Big Sky Institute, Montana State University | |
| George Weldon, Deputy Director Fire, Northern Region, USDA, US Forest Service | |
| Tony Westerling, PhD., Asst. Professor, School of Engineering, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, University of California, Merced | |
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Dr. Cathy Whitlock has been a Professor of Earth Sciences at Montana State University since 2004 and before that she was at the University of Oregon. Her research, described in over 100 scientific papers, focuses on the ecological consequences of past climate change, and the long-term linkages between fire, vegetation, and climate. The Yellowstone fires of 1988 inspired her group to look closely at the layers of charcoal in lake sediments and consider their potential use as a record of past fire. Yellowstone findings of the last 20 years have led to the development of new analytical approaches and refinement of fire history interpretations around the world. Whitlock’s current research in fire history extends from the western U.S. to Patagonia and New Zealand. She has helped build a global network of paleofire researchers and is a member of the advisory board for NOAA’s International Multiproxy Paleofire Database. |
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Dr. Tom Zimmerman. Tom’s work experience includes Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and U.S.Forest Service. During these assignments, Tom served at all administrative levels (field, state, regional, and national offices). Tom moved to his current position with the US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station in 2007. Program responsibilities here include management and advancement of a Research, Development, and Application program focusing on science delivery at the national interagency level. He is involved in national training cadres in Advanced Incident Management, Area Command, and Advanced Fire Use Applications and has served on Type 2 and Type 1 Incident Management Teams, Interagency Fire Use Management Teams, and is currently an Area Commander on a National Interagency Area Command Team. Tom received a B.S. degree in Forestry from the University of Montana, a M.S. degree in Fire Ecology from the University of Idaho, and a Ph.D. in Fire Science from Colorado State University. |
LUNCHEON SPEAKERS |
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| Mark Hebblewhite, PhD., College of Forestry, University of Montana – Missoula, MT (see above for more information) | |
| Alfredo Nolasco-Morales, Mexico Fire Program Director, The Nature Conservancy, Merida, Yucatan, Mexico (see above for more information) | |
BANQUET SPEAKER |
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| Norm Christensen,PhD., Professor of Ecology and Founding Dean of the Nicholas School, Environmental Sciences & Policy, Duke University (see above for more information) | |
More information is coming soon. Please check back.
