SEFS Alumni Feature: Ed Draper, Washington Pulp and Paper Foundation Executive Director

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man wearing waders holds fish and poleRaised in the small logging town of Aberdeen, Washington, SEFS alumnus Ed Draper was aware of the variable nature of the forest products industry from a young age. “Both my parents told me to not work in the forest products industry given the nature of it, especially when I was growing up,” said Draper. But, as a freshman at UW, he found his way into the industry nonetheless and began a degree that would lead to a long and successful career in paper science. Now, as he joins the Washington Pulp and Paper Foundation as the new executive director, Draper reflects on the opportunities that led him here.

Though he initially was interested in computer science and electrical engineering, a talk with a former professor, Bill Mckean, opened his eyes to the many opportunities in the forest products industry. Draper received a scholarship from the Washington Pulp and Paper Foundation and began to consider the industry during an internship near his hometown at Grays Harbor Paper.

“Seeing the things that we learned about in my freshman year chemistry and math classes, where you could apply some of what you know you’re learning in lecture and see it being done in practice to create something was a great experience. After that, I decided to stay in the paper science major, and I’m very glad that I did,” said Draper.

Draper went on to graduate with a master’s in paper science engineering in 2003 and worked his way through a variety of roles in the paper and pulp industry over 15 years. From engineer to regional quality manager for the western US at global packaging company Sonoco, Draper learned the workings of the industry and built relationships with customers like Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble, and Philip Morris. Eventually, Draper returned to Sonoco’s mill in Sumner, Washington, as senior process engineer in charge of working on large capital projects, before taking over as the production superintendent for the mill, where he managed day-to-day operations. 

After reconnecting with Mark Lewis, who formerly managed the paper science lab at UW, Draper was recruited for a company creating sustainable alternatives using nonwood material and agriculture waste like wheat straw, sugar cane, and barley. With a process using less chemicals and less energy, they produced a sustainable wood pulp replacement for all sorts of paper products.

man stands near forested mountains and a lakeNow, Draper returns to UW with a wealth of knowledge about the pulp and paper industry. As the newly appointed executive director of the Washington Pulp and Paper Foundation, he is looking forward to the opportunity to work with students again and provide guidance on the program he navigated 25 years ago. As he adjusts to the role, he anticipates finding opportunities to expand on how the foundation aligns with the Bioresource Science and Engineering (BSE) major.

“Traditionally, we’ve recruited the traditional companies that supply the pulp and paper industry. But the BSE program is not just pulp and paper. It’s bioresources. There’s a big sustainability aspect of this major, and I’m hoping to look at how we can bring in other companies that are interested in sustainability, especially in the packaging area, and convince them to join the foundation and recruit students who come out of this program,” said Draper.

Draper is an avid outdoor enthusiast, enjoying everything the Pacific Northwest has to offer with his wife and two daughters. His advice for students today? Get hands-on experience, through an internship or program, that can help determine whether you like working in an industry and explore what type of role best suits you.

SEFS assistant professor named Highly Cited Researcher

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SEFS associate professor Greg Bratman was featured on the annual Highly Cited Researchers 2023 list from Clarivate, alongside over 40 UW researchers who received the honor this year.

Bratman was listed in the “cross-field impact” category, which recognizes researchers who focus on interdisciplinary work and contribute multiple highly cited papers in several different fields. His research focuses on the impacts of contact with nature on psychological well-being and mental health.

Bratman directs the Environment and Well-Being Lab, a research group that gathers empirical data, develops theoretical frameworks, and uses novel approaches to understand the association of nature contact with cognitive function, mood and other aspects of psychological well-being.

SEFS in the news: November 2023

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Browse recent mentions of SEFS researchers in the news. Have news to share? Send your updates to sefscomm@uw.edu.

SEFS-led paper on forest productivity potential linked to UN Sustainable Development Goal

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Research by SEFS alumna Angela Klock and SEFS emeritus faculty members Kristiina and Daniel Vogt was highlighted as contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goal tackling global hunger, food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture. 

The paper, published in 2022 in MethodsX, provides a more holistic index of theoretical maximum potential productivity, potential achievable productivity and ecosystem fit in forests. It was linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

Employee Spotlight: Natasha Lavides, SEFS Undergraduate Academic Advisor

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Get to know SEFS staff! This series provides an opportunity to find out more about SEFS staff members — what they do in their daily job and how they spend their time outside the office.

Natasha at a botanical garden in Vancouver BC (in aforementioned leather trench)

What is your role at SEFS?

I joined the SEFS advising team in May of 2023 as one of their undergraduate academic advisors! At the moment, I primarily work with ESRM and BSE students, answering any questions related to their academics and advocating for whatever needs that they have. I typically have my door open when I am in the office (and I love visitors!), so please feel free to stop by and say hi if you would like!

Tell us about your college experience

I graduated from the UW in 2022 with a BS in psychology and a minor in education. Though two years of my education were during the pandemic, I tried my best to be involved on campus! Whether it was being a peer advisor in Mary Gates Hall or conducting intersectionality research for the psychology departmental honors program, I found myself within a very supportive community and a passion for diversity work. This pushed me to be involved in other avenues on campus, including the Asian Student Commission, the First Year Experience Council, the Mentor Power for Success Program, and so on. In these spaces, I strived to understand how my identities show up and I recognized the power that came with connection and representation. Thus, listening and leaving space for others became my utmost goal and I aim to embody this in my current position!

Tell us about your road to SEFS

During undergrad, I was a peer advisor/student associate for Undergraduate Academic Affairs (UAA) Advising and the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity (in Mary Gates Hall!). It was during these positions that I realized I had a passion for working with students and supporting them in their academic endeavors, particularly in higher education. So, after I graduated, I worked temporarily as a professional staff member at UAA before taking some time off to travel and spend time with family. Six months later, I found myself applying to this position as a temporary worker and permanently joined the team about a month ago!

Where did you grow up?

Natasha and family in Baguio, Philippines

My grandparents immigrated from the Philippines when my parents were young. This eventually resulted in me being born in Renton, WA — southeast of Seattle. When I was four years old, my family moved further north, and I ended up in the Bothell/Kirkland area for most of my schooling. Luckily, most of my extended family resides nearby, though we try to visit our family in the Philippines as often as we can!

Growing up to the east of Seattle, I became very fond of the lakes in Kirkland. My favorite activity was swimming every summer at Waverly Beach Park and going to the Woodinville Barnes & Noble after school. Generally, a lot of my youth included interests that my older siblings had: ukulele, skateboarding, trampoline parks, hacky sack, etc. (admittedly, my sister had a lot of niche interests).

What are your favorite ways to spend time outside of work?

At my best, I enjoy going on runs around the city’s trails and singing karaoke. I also enjoy doing typical bucket list items: taking a train from Seattle to New York, skydiving, posing for the UW bookstore, etc. On a more typical day, my favorite thing to do is spend time with my friends and family, usually ending with us watching a movie or exploring a new thrift/vintage shop.

Over the last year or so, I’ve also gotten really into wearing rather eccentric clothing. I love to use fashion as a way to express myself, so if you see me walking around in a leather trench coat that is much too big, just know it is my most favorite recent find!

What inspires you?

I grew up in the kind of family that did everything together: grocery shopping, going to the pharmacy, taking a long drive. It could be the most mundane activity (it usually is!), and my dad would still rally the rest of my family into the car. This closeness provided me with a very supportive and uplifting community.

As I have gotten older, I continue to be inspired by my family and friends. While I can no longer attend all of my father’s grocery trips, my family’s generosity motivates me to show up for those that I love. Their compassion has been instilled in me, and I have made it my mission to do the same where I can!

Natasha at the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland

2023 Pack Forest Summer Crew: Season Recap

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For nine weeks this summer five SEFS undergraduate students-Hannah Carbajal, Shelby Felthoven, Mia, Mata, Lark Murphy, and Emily Rabus took part in this year’s Pack Forest Summer crew gaining field training in research and sustainable forest management!

The students worked alongside two SEFS graduate students, as well as forester Chase Beyer. They participated in a wide range of activities, including measuring 90 permanent forest inventory plots from the Continuous Forest Inventory (CFI) project.

The interns joined Beatriz Oliva in several field tasks related to her masters research project at Pack Forest. They also helped maintain several previous research projects led by Professor Greg Ettl including the through-fall exclusion project and assisted with this summer’s timber cruise.

The Pack Forest Summer Crew had an immersive, productive and memorable internship!

ONRC prepares autonomous ocean drone to monitor harmful algal blooms

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autonomous surface vehicle
Photo courtesy SeaSats

Last month, researchers at the Olympic Natural Resources Center (ONRC) launched a self-powered autonomous surface vehicle (ASV), called the Lightfish, off the coast of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula to improve our understanding and monitoring of harmful algal blooms (HAB) and resulting toxins. The project is funded by the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) through an ocean technology transfer award to the University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory (John Mickett, PI) in collaboration with the ONRC. The solar-powered ASV, to be equipped with a custom water sampler designed and built by UW APL, will collect water samples and monitor environmental conditions such as chlorophyll levels, water and air temperature, barometric pressure, and wind speed, all while piloting itself through the often rough waters of the Pacific Northwest coastal ocean. Observations collected by this autonomous marine vessel will aid early warning systems that alert communities to marine biotoxins that impact shellfish harvest.

The ONRC, which is part of the University of Washington’s College of Environment and the School of Environment and Forest Science, conducts research across land and sea with the goal of integrating ecology and economics in the management of both forest and marine resources. Based in Forks, Washington, ONRC houses research labs, conference spaces, and lodging. The ONRC marine science program is led by Vera Trainer, who also directs the Olympic Region Harmful Algal Bloom (ORHAB). The regional observing system of IOOS, the Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS) will serve the data collected by the Lightfish as a partner in ORHAB.

ORHAB was established in 1999 to protect public health on the Washington coast by building a comprehensive monitoring and research program to better understand the underlying dynamics of harmful algal blooms. The marine biotoxin domoic acid can be produced by an HAB that causes amnesic shellfish poisoning, including neurological symptoms and sometimes death in humans and wildlife that ingest shellfish. The ORHAB monitoring program provides weekly phytoplankton concentrations to the Washington State Dept of Health, with a focus on phytoplankton that can cause HABs, and contributes to a HAB bulletin that assists managers in scheduling safe shellfish harvest.

Tribes throughout the Olympic Peninsula are members of ORHAB, through the support of their own internal monitoring programs, and collaborate closely with state and academic ORHAB partners. IOOS funds some of the effort by tribes, ONRC, and others through ORHAB as part of the National HAB Observing Network. These tribal partners, which also are co-managers of shellfish resources, produce data used to protect their tribal members and to add spatial coverage to the ORHAB project on the Washington coast.

ONRC research analyst Anthony Odell and partners first launched the Lightfish on October 11th during a training workshop attended by ONRC researchers and Tribal water quality specialists from the Makah, Quinault, Hoh, and Quileute Tribes. Once programmed, the Lightfish will be set on a charted path through the HAB initiation sites in the Juan de Fuca eddy and Heceta Bank. It is designed by engineering company SeaSats to provide a reliable, affordable, and sustainable vehicle for ocean operations. Its robust construction allows the craft to operate in rough conditions unsuitable for researchers to collect samples, such as before and during storms.

SEFS alumnus Chang Dou receives American Institute of Chemical Engineers 35 under 35 award

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SEFS alumnus Chang Dou (SEFS/BSE MS ’13, Ph.D. ’17) was selected as one of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) 35 under 35. This award, presented every three years, honors exceptional AIChE members under the age of 35 who have made significant contributions to the field of Chemical Engineering and to AIChE.

“Working in the Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts Process Development Unit, Dou leads process analytics R&D to bridge lab innovation and commercial success in advanced biomanufacturing. He aspires to further drive the convergence of sustainable technologies into viable commercial products, especially within the industrial biotechnology field. Dou loves the outdoors. In 2011, he traveled to Lhasa, Tibet, with a friend to hike and hitchhike more than 1,300 miles along the China G318 route (approximately the distance between New York and Miami).”

All winners will be formally recognized and celebrated during an awards reception at the 2023 AIChE Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL (Nov. 5–10, 2023).

SEFS in the news: October 2023

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Browse recent mentions of SEFS researchers in the news. Have news to share? Send your updates to sefscomm@uw.edu.

SEFS-led research on tool use by crows published in Nature Communications

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What’s happening inside a crow’s brain when it thinks about using a tool? Researchers at the University of Washington used to peer inside the brains of crows as they were challenged with a difficult task that required stone tools to solve.

The researchers showed crows an Aesop’s fable paradigm; a clear tube partially filled with water containing a floating food item. The birds had to learn to to a level that enabled them to reach the food reward.

The experiment set up that crows encountered.

The researchers recorded relative brain activity when the crows were first exposed to the Aesop task, then spent several months training them to solve it before scanning their brain activity a second time. The proficiency in learning the task affected brain activity between the two scans.

“Talent matters,” said lead author Loma Pendergraft, an instructor affiliated with the UW Department of Psychology and the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. “We found that naïve crows – who had never seen the apparatus before – showed more activity in neural circuits that govern sensory and higher-order processing. They were taking in a lot of information and thinking hard about it. But, if they became proficient at using tools to solve the task, we saw a big shift away from those regions and into areas associated with motor learning and tactile control.

This suggests that crows are like humans; we both use the parts of our brain that allow us to think and consider the actions needed to learn a skill, but as we master that skill, we start relying on muscle memory instead. According to coauthor John Marzluff, professor emeritus of the UW’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, “It is like a master skier prepping for a slalom run. They work through each turn mentally as they await their start. The master crows did likewise, mentally working through the movements of their bodies, especially their beaks that would be needed to pick up and drop the stones.”

The team published their results Oct 20 in Nature Communications.

Recorded relative brain activity when the crows were exposed to the Aesop task.

Training the crows was a significant challenge the team had to overcome. “American crows are not regular tool users,” said Pendergraft, “and I was at my wits’ end trying to get them to learn how.” He ultimately succeeded in training some of the crows by tying the stones to lines that were anchored inside the tube, then balancing the stones along the tube’s rim. When the hungry crow tried to grab the food floating just out of reach, they usually inadvertently knocked a stone into the tube’s interior, bringing the water level upward. “Once they understood that cause and effect relationship, it wasn’t long before they started picking stones off the ground to drop inside.”

Curiously, not all crows were equally adept at using tools; female crows were far more likely than the males to solve the task. “All of our adult females learned to use tools. Only one male figured it out,” said Pendergraft, “we see the same female bias for tool use in dolphins, chimps, and bonobos.” He speculates that this trend may be because female crows tend to be smaller than males and may rely more on clever strategies to navigate crow society, whereas the larger males can get their way through their size and strength. Ultimately, it is a question for future study.

Progression of the Aesop task.

Additional co-authors on this paper are Donna Cross, an associate professor at the University of Utah; Toru Shimizu, a professor and associate dean at the University of South Florida; and Chris Templeton, an assistant professor at Western Washington University.

This research was funded by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Higher Education and Training Program, the NSF GRFP, the Seattle ARCS Foundation, the James Ridgeway Professorship, the NIH (grant: 1S10OD017980-01), and the NERC (grant: NE/J018694/1).

This release is shared with permission from lead author Loma Pendergraft.

Spring arrives on the UW Seattle campus in April 2020.