Alumni Feature: ONRC graduate student Ally Kruper on research and community

Since transferring to the University of Washington in her junior year, SEFS alumna Ally Kruper has made the most of opportunities to get involved outside the classroom. Her passion for horticulture and working with communities led to an internship with the SER-UW Native Plant Nursery at the Center for Urban Horticulture.  

Fall snow levels can predict total snowpack in some western states, UW study finds

A recent study published in Geophysical Research Letters by UW researchers, including SEFS Associate Professor Laura Prugh, examines the relationship between early-season snow and total snowfall in the western U.S. Using data from a network of snow sensors, the researchers looked at air temperature and accumulated precipitation from 2001 to 2022 for over 800 sites. 

A message from Dan Brown, SEFS Director: Fall 2023

Each autumn, I enjoy welcoming students back to campus. This time of year gives us an opportunity to look ahead to how we can achieve our goals, both as individuals and as a School. 

SEFS in the News: September, 2023

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

Greg Bratman, SEFS assistant professor, was featured in a Seattle Times article about the benefits of trees in cities. 

SEFS remembers Affiliate Professor Don Hanley

Long-time SEFS affiliate professor Don Hanley passed away on September 2nd after years of battling cancer. Don was a valued colleague, mentor, and friend, and had recently celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary with his wife, Kris Hanley.  

SEFS director Dan Brown contributes to research on the rise of corporate farms in Africa

SEFS director Dan Brown is a co-author on a recent publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that demonstrates how corporate farms, which have steadily risen in Africa, can displace small farmers leading to greater land inequity, poverty, and food insecurity. 

SEFS and U.S. Forest Service researchers develop wildfire modeling tool for the Pacific Northwest and beyond

SEFS research scientist Susan Prichard, alongside colleagues from the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station — Paul Hessburg, Nicholas Povak and Brion Salter — and consulting fire ecologist Robert Gray, have developed a tool for modeling wildfires that could help managers and policymakers better understand long-term consequences of different fire management practices and policies. 

As wildfire activity increases in forests, SEFS-led research helps predict wildfire severity based on fire size

When wildfires cross a landscape, the severity of the burn isn’t uniform over the area impacted. Areas where most or all trees are killed by fire are considered “high severity burns.” The shape and size of high severity burned patches within fires play an important role in forest resilience and fire regimes, and have been difficult to predict. 

SEFS faculty and alumni appointed to newly established Northwest Forest Plan Federal Advisory Committee

The USDA Forest Service announced the formation of a new Federal Advisory Committee to advise on a climate-informed approach to landscape management across national forest lands in Washington, Oregon and Northern California. 

SEFS-led research points to wildlife cameras as a potential source for improving snow cover maps

New research led by SEFS Ph.D. Candidate Catherine (Katie) Breen highlights remote cameras deployed to monitor wildlife as an untapped source of snow cover observations. Published in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment last week, Breen and her advisor, Associate Professor Laura Prugh, worked with colleagues at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research and NASA on a method combining international datasets to validate and improve satellite observations of snow cover using imagery from wildlife camera networks.