Appendix D
Workshop Speaker and Steering Committee Member Bios
ARUN AGRAWAL (steering committee member) is a professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. His research and teaching emphasize the politics of international development, institutional change, and environmental conservation. He coordinates the International Forestry Resources and Institutions network and is a current member of the National Research Council’s Board on Environmental Change and Society (BECS).
SHORNA ALLRED (steering committee member) is associate professor of natural resources in the Department of Natural Resources and associate director of the Human Dimensions Research Unit (HDRU) at Cornell University. The goal of her research program is to develop a fundamental understanding of human behavior for the purposes of improving resource conservation and management.
BRETT BUTLER is a research forester with the U.S. Forest Service and an adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the director of the U.S. Forest Service’s National Woodland Owner Survey, co-director of the Family Forest Research Center, and involved in a number of related projects including the Sustaining Family Forests Initiative.
CHARLES CANHAM (steering committee member) is a forest ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystems. His research includes development and application of SORTIE, a spatially explicit model of forest dynam-
ics; neighborhood dynamics of forest ecosystems; effects of vertebrate consumers on forest dynamics; effects of hurricanes on temperate and tropical forest dynamics; watershed-scale analyses of variation in lake chemistry; and likelihood estimation methods and modeling.
PURNIMA CHAWLA is the executive director of the Center for Nonprofit Strategies. Before starting the Center, she served as senior vice president for research and account planning at Equals Three Communications. She currently serves on the board of Citizens for Global Solutions, an advocacy organization.
CHRISTOPHER CLARKE is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at George Mason University (GMU). He is also affiliated with the GMU Center for Climate Change Communication and specializes in the strategic communication of health and environmental risk.
DAVE CLEAVES is the climate change advisor in the U.S. Forest Service. In this role, he is the primary spokesperson for the agency on climate change and leads the implementation of the Forest Service’s nationwide strategy for weaving climate change response into policies, processes, and partnerships. He was formerly the associate deputy chief of Forest Service Research & Development. Prior to his career in the Forest Service, he was a professor of forest marketing and economics at Oregon State University.
JANEAN CREIGHTON is an associate professor and extension specialist in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University (OSU). She is the administrative director for the Northwest Fire Science Consortium and the OSU and USFS PNW partnership. Her research focus includes ways to increase the information delivery and technology transfer capabilities of fuels and fire research to managers and practitioners in the field.
KARL DALLA-ROSA is a forest stewardship program manager with the U.S. Forest Service, responsible for national direction, coordination, and management of the Forest Stewardship Program. Previously, he served as a cooperative resource management forester for Hawaii’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife.
GEOFFREY FEINBERG is a research specialist at Yale University’s Project on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC). Prior to this, he was a vice president at GfK North America, where he co-founded and was the GfK director of the Associated Press-GfK Poll. In the environmental arena, he served as research consultant to the Sustaining Family Forests Initiative.
JAMES FINLEY (steering committee chair) is Ibberson Professor of Forest Resources at Pennsylvania State University. He served as associate director of the School of Forest Resources, in the College of Agricultural Sciences, and was the extension coordinator from 1997 to 2012. He co-chaired the Roundtable on Sustainable Forests for several years.
VICTOR HARRIS is the publisher and editor of Minority Landowner magazine. He has over 20 years’ experience in forest management and urban natural resource management, and he was the first African American to work as a forester with the Virginia State Department of Forestry. He also served as the assistant state forester for administration with the North Carolina Forest Service.
JOE E. HEIMLICH (steering committee member) is a professor in extension at Ohio State University (OSU) in the community development unit, an extension specialist at OSU’s Center of Science and Industry (COSI), and a professor in the OSU School of Environment and Natural Resources and the Environmental Science Graduate Program. He is a member of the National Research Council’s Roundtable on Climate Change Education.
JAMES HOUSER is the owner and consulting forester of James Houser Consulting Foresters, LLC (JHCF), which assists private, nonindustrial landowners in all areas of forest management operations. He serves on the Forest Resource Coordinating Committee.
STEVEN W. KOEHN (steering committee member) is the state forester and director of the Maryland DNR Forest Service. He was president of the National Association of State Foresters from 2009 to 2010 and he currently serves on the boards of directors for the American Forest Foundation and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, Inc.
BILL LABICH is the regional conservationist at Highstead. He facilitates the development and activity of state-wide and regional conservation partnerships and networks on behalf of the Wildlands and Woodlands Initiative. He has 25 years’ experience in the fields of forest management, land use planning, environmental education, and regional land conservation.
LYLE LAVERTY is a consulting forester who provides services to private landowners, agencies, and nonprofits. He is a former U.S. assistant secretary of the interior for fish, wildlife, and parks. He served as the director of Colorado State Parks from 2001 to 2007.
CLAIRE LAYMAN is a public policy education specialist with Michigan State University Extension. She leads its internal climate change outreach team and conducts climate change communication workshops for extension personnel. Recent projects include planning and facilitating community meetings to create climate adaptation plans and conducting listening sessions with farmers on their climate change attitudes and education needs.
MARTHA LYMAN is a consultant in the field of community-based natural resource management. She served as founding partner and coordinator of the Community Forest Collaborative, a partnership of the Trust for Public Land, the Northern Forest Center, and the Quebec-Labrador Foundation/Atlantic Center for the Environment.
AMANDA MAHAFFEY serves as the Northeast region director for the Forest Guild and is a licensed forester in Maine. Most recently, she coordinated a regional conservation partnership of organizations and agencies with a common goal of increasing woodland owners’ ability to make informed decisions about their woodlands in Kennebec County, Maine.
MAUREEN H. MCDONOUGH (steering committee member) is a professor and extension specialist in the Department of Forestry at Michigan State University, with adjunct appointments in the Department of Sociology and the Michigan State Museum. Her research and extension interests include community-driven forestry and increasing the diversity of voices in natural resource decision making.
ALLYSON MUTH is a program associate in the forest stewardship program at Pennsylvania State University. In this role she supports an organization of forest stewardship volunteers who promote stewardship to peers. She is also a member of the graduate faculty. Previously she was a decision support forester and assistant district forester for Georgia-Pacific, LLC.
ERIC NORLAND is a national program leader in the Division of Environmental Systems in the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. He also works in the Office of the Climate Change Advisor on a part-time basis as the link to the national extension forestry and natural resources networks and NIFA. He worked for 20 years with Ohio State University Extension.
DON OUTEN is a natural resource manager with the Baltimore County Department of Environmental Protection and Sustainability (EPS) and is
the EPS manager for sustainability. He is a member of the Sustainable Forestry Council and participant/core group member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Forests. He is a former deputy director/chief of current planning with the Maryland Department of Planning and Zoning in Harford County, MD.
ALTON PERRY is a forest management-land retention consultant at the Roanoke Center, part of Roanoke Electric Cooperative. He is retired from the North Carolina Forest Service, where he had a number of positions including forest technician, outreach coordinator, and ranger. He worked closely with state and federal partners implementing their forestry/conservation programs and services.
MARY TYRRELL (steering committee member) is the executive director of the Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. She leads the Sustaining Family Forests Initiative and serves on the board of the Hamden Land Conservation Trust and on the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Department of Conservation and Recreation, Division of Water Supply Protection.
ELI SAGOR is an extension educator with a focus on forest ecology and management with the Department of Forest Resources at University of Minnesota Extension. He manages the My Minnesota Woods website, webinars, and other communications. His work focuses on engaging woodland owners in learning processes that support sound, well-informed land care decisions.
JAMES M. VOSE is a research ecologist and project leader of the USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Center for Integrated Forest Science (CIFS) at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. He spent 25 years at the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory studying watershed ecosystem responses to disturbances and forest management. He recently served as co-lead author on the USDA National Climate Assessment Forest Sector Report.
TAMARA WALKINGSTICK is an associate professor of forestry for the University of Arkansas (UA), Division of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service (UACES). She is also associate director for the Arkansas Forest Resources Center based at the UA-Monticello, School of Forestry. She serves on the boards of the Arkansas American Indian Center, Arkansas Urban Forestry Council, and National Network of Forest Practitioners.
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