Stan Bartkowiak
Ph.D. student
School of Forestry & Wildlife Sciences
Auburn University
Research focus: Measuring water fluxes at Tier III sites; developing improved methods to evaluate stomatal response to update 3-PG.

Research focus: Phenotyping of adaptive traits in loblolly pine progeny trials; working with universities across region to conduct genome-wide association mapping between these traits and the re-sequencing data.

Research focus: Assessing relationships among intercepted radiation, LAI, photosynthetic capacity, phenology, and productivity in loblolly pine.

Research Focus: Carrying out joint analysis of progeny test data and climate data for the Cooperative Tree Improvement Program.

Research focus: Trace gas response to fertilizer on a Tier III site and loblolly pine plantations in the upper and lower coastal plains.

Research focus: Reformatting the NARCCAP scenarios for key climate variables from six models (GCM/RCM combinations).

Research Focus: Developing a growth and yield model flexible enough to allow modification in diameter, height, and mortality at tree- and stand-level for diverse genotypes and silvicultural practices under varying conditions (using Tier I datasets).

Research focus: How to best introduce potentially divisive and contested concepts in secondary school curricula.

Research focus: Developing GIS model to identify genetically significant loblolly pine populations.

Research focus: Separating heterotrophic and autotrophic respiration components of soil CO₂ efflux.

Research focus: Assessing market implications and economic feedback with the forest resource using the SRTS model.

Puskar Khanal
Ph.D. student
College of Forest Resources
Mississippi State University
Research focus: Evaluating forest management practices that enhance carbon sequestration in stands; developing survey instrument to determine small forest landowners' willingness to implement these practices and identify potential incentives that increase carbon sequestration at the stand level.

Research focus: Economic value of forest-based changes in water quality; meta-analysis of forest-based water quality values; specified an econometric model that predicts willingness to pay for forest-based water quality; using benefit transfer method, applied the model to two representative sites.

Andy Laviner
Ph.D. student
Department of Forest Resources & Environmental Conservation
Virginia Tech
Research focus: Water use and nitrogen cycling in loblolly pine plantations under reduced water availability

Research focus: Water use efficiency in loblolly pine using 12C/13C ratios in wood from Tier II sites and soil respiration measurement in 3 Tier II sites in north subregion.

Mengmeng (Miranda) Lu
Ph.D. student
Department of Ecosystem Science & Management
Texas A&M University
Research focus: Evaluating efficiency of Agilent SureSelect target gene enrichment system for Illumina GAII and HiSeq high-probe design using the Agilent eArray tool and the most recent and comprehensive unigene set consisting of 42077 sequences representing individual genes expressed in loblolly pine.

Research focus: Soil CO₂ efflux and carbon storage and use with changing environmental parameters.

Research focus: Ecophysiology on Tier II and Tier III sites

Loblolly pine ecophysiological responses to rainfall manipulation and fertilization treatments. Researching  treatment effects on intercepted radiation, leaf area index, photosynthetic capacity and productivity in 7-year-old loblolly pine stands on the Georgia Tier 3 experimental site

Research focus: Soil water and deep soil carbon responses under rain throughfall treatment at Tier III sites

Tracey Ritchie
Ph.D. student
School of Forest Resources & Conservation
University of Florida
Research focus: Developing and conducting summative evaluation for PINEMAP Project Learning Tree Secondary Module

Ed Russell
Ph.D. student
Department of Forest Resources & Environmental Conservation
Virginia Tech

Research focus: Characterizing the physiological and morphological responses to the through-fall exclusion and fertilizer treatments of the tier 3 sites. I have a particular interest in experimental design, statistical analysis and modeling.

Research focus: Investigating soil carbon dynamics along hydrology and fire regimes in southern pine ecosystems; investigating the effects of fire disturbance on the structure and function of soil carbon dynamics in pine and wetland ecosystems; and developing a mechanistic model to upscale site specific findings to the regional scale

Research focus: Identifying/developing improved method to determine fertility rating for 3-PG

Laura Townsend
M.S. student
Department of Forestry & Environmental Conservation
North Carolina State University
Research focus: Genetic variation in loblolly pine for adaptability to climate variables

Research focus: Examination of  the production of water, carbon, biodiversity, and timber on forest lands, and identification of spatially-explicit tradeoffs and bundles of these services

Research focus: Predicting C pool dynamics for alternative land use, management, and climate scenarios at the stand level; link 3-PG and Century to examine forest ecosystem carbon sequestration

Research focus: Ecophysiology of drought response on Tier III site

Research focus: Family and culture effects on ecosystem C and N dynamics

Research focus: Conducting analyses linking progeny test performance with climatic data; developing database for the URF analysis to optimize seedling deployment