About

Our faculty are engaged and dedicated educators, advisors, and mentors and have been honored with numerous university-wide and national teaching awards. Our classes emphasize the latest research coupled with cutting-edge technology and practices making our graduates among the most competitive candidates in the country for natural resource professions. Our curricula include everything from protected lands management and urban forestry, to industrial forestry operations and ecology. Small class sizes and faculty dedicated to teaching afford FREC students the chance to get to know their professors personally. Wide varieties of academic and professional opportunities are available through research, student organizations, and public outreach programs organized by the faculty.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Geography
• Social psychology
• Computer Science
• Pedagogy
• Psychology
• Environmental planning
• Environmental science
• Archaeology
• Literature
• Aesthetics
• Art
• Ecology
• Environmental resource management

Selected publications

• Lessons learned from a collective evaluation and community of practice focused on evidence-based learning

  Evaluation and Program Planning · 2026-02-18

  article
  PublisherDOI

• How Trust Manifests in a Natural Resource Partnership

  Figshare · 2026-04-16

  articleOpen access

  Trust is essential for successful environmental governance, but more research is needed to understand how trust ecology dynamics interact to influence partnership success. We applied the trust ecology framework to partnerships between federal agencies and non-governmental organizations focused on outdoor recreation management. Data were collected from U.S. agency personnel and nonprofit organizations engaged in partnerships to understand partnership success, overall trust, and the four trust pathways: expected behavior (rational trust), emotional connection/shared values (affinitive trust), systems providing a safety net (systems-based trust), and the trustor’s predisposition to trust (dispositional trust). High levels of overall trust were strongly linked to partnership success. Affinitive trust was the most significant predictor of overall trust. These trust pathways were highly interdependent, each likely reinforcing the others in shaping trust dynamics. We advance shared governance theory by highlighting the importance of context-specific strategies for building and sustaining trust in natural resource management.

  PublisherDOI

• How Trust Manifests in a Natural Resource Partnership

  Society & Natural Resources · 2026-04-16

  article
  PublisherDOI

• How Trust Manifests in a Natural Resource Partnership

  Figshare · 2026-04-16

  articleOpen access

  Trust is essential for successful environmental governance, but more research is needed to understand how trust ecology dynamics interact to influence partnership success. We applied the trust ecology framework to partnerships between federal agencies and non-governmental organizations focused on outdoor recreation management. Data were collected from U.S. agency personnel and nonprofit organizations engaged in partnerships to understand partnership success, overall trust, and the four trust pathways: expected behavior (rational trust), emotional connection/shared values (affinitive trust), systems providing a safety net (systems-based trust), and the trustor’s predisposition to trust (dispositional trust). High levels of overall trust were strongly linked to partnership success. Affinitive trust was the most significant predictor of overall trust. These trust pathways were highly interdependent, each likely reinforcing the others in shaping trust dynamics. We advance shared governance theory by highlighting the importance of context-specific strategies for building and sustaining trust in natural resource management.

  PublisherDOI

• Thinking Within and Beyond Site Boundaries: Implications for Interpretation

  Journal of Interpretation Research · 2026-04-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Community vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning: A workshop methodology to expedite progress

  Climate Services · 2025-10-29 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  We lay out a methodology for planning and implementing place-based climate adaptation workshops, which are an increasingly commonly used tool to help communities prepare for and respond to climate change impacts. This methodology was created using literature from the field, a Delphi study to generate consensus-based best practices for effective workshops in the United States, and the authors’ experiences implementing the methodology at workshops in eight U.S. communities across a range of geographies, political contexts, and climate exposures. Workshop facilitators guided participants through vulnerability assessments for their communities, introduced tools and data for supporting this work, and engaged participants in break-out group discussions to co-develop adaptation solutions for increasing community resilience to identified climate change vulnerabilities. Our work supports that workshop effectiveness is enhanced when key conditions are put in place, including encouraging a diversity of participation; reducing barriers to participation; providing expert facilitation; sharing locally relevant examples; and creating space for co-generated solutions that are feasible and for which leaders and partners are identified to lead implementation. We share evidence that, while workshops were recent, communities have started undertaking adaptation solutions identified during the climate adaptation workshops and are translating them into planning and implementation in their communities. In providing this methodology, we aim to share a case study for creating and conducting effective, capacity-building place-based climate adaptation workshops that can help communities build resilience to climate change.

  PublisherDOI

• Empirical test of the participation paradox in conservation and development

  Conservation Science and Practice · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Local participation has been greatly promoted to accomplish conservation and development goals globally, but the participation paradox, in which those empowered to participate fail to do so, has rarely been thoroughly scrutinized. Here we test the participation paradox with empirical data of 234 local decision‐makers' participation in a decision‐making forum, Conservation Area Management Committees, in the Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal. Using an explanatory sequential mixed methods design, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected in 2013 and 2016, analyzed, interpreted, and integrated. Women, minorities, younger members, and non‐elected members participated significantly less in decision‐making than men, older members, and elected members and those with leadership roles and longer tenures on the committees. Qualitative analyses revealed five major themes for motivation to participate: influence in the community; personal incentives; conservation; improving access to natural resources; and feelings of accomplishment. Key constraints to participation included hardships and competing tasks; lack of incentives; perceptions of limited agency; disinterest; and emotional burdens. Participation motivations and constraints varied by gender, social group, and membership types. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these results for participatory approaches to conservation and sustainable development in general and the governance of protected areas in particular.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Community Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Planning: A Workshop Methodology to Expedite Progress

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Enabling factors and constraints for advancing justice through climate adaptation: evidence from 25 US municipalities implementing climate plans

  Journal of Environmental Planning and Management · 2025-04-22 · 3 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Principles for better environmental education field trips for early adolescent youth in the United States: an empirical study

  Environmental Education Research · 2025-05-12 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Which approaches lead to better outcomes for participants in environmental education (EE) field trips? This manuscript builds upon previous large-sample quantitative research that identified effective elements of single-day EE field trip programs for early adolescent youth across the USA. In this mixed-methods study, we observed 87 EE-focused school field trips in the USA and then surveyed youth participants immediately afterwards. We used the student surveys to quantitatively distinguish the top-performing quartile of programs from the bottom quartile. We then examined in-depth qualitative fieldnotes on each program in the top and bottom quartiles. Our analyses revealed six key principles that distinguished the programs with the most positive student outcomes from those with the least positive: (1) ensuring basic needs (physiological and safety) are met; (2) ensuring instructional clarity; (3) providing emotional support for students; (4) highlighting the novelty of the activities and setting; (5) maintaining or restoring student attention; and (6) providing a cohesive and thematic experience with clear purpose. There are many ways to embody the six principles. We share examples for each.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Effective environmental workshop facilitation and local community action

  NSF · $773k · 2018–2025

Frequent coauthors

• Robert B. Powell

  Clemson University

  56 shared

• B. Troy Frensley

  University of North Carolina Wilmington

  17 shared

• Nicole M. Ardoin

  Stanford University

  17 shared

• Nabin Baral

  University of Washington

  10 shared

• S. Andrew Predmore

  University of Illinois at Springfield

  9 shared

• Dale J. Blahna

  Pacific Northwest Research Station

  9 shared

• David N. Seesholtz

  US Forest Service

  9 shared

• Michael J. Mortimer

  9 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  Yale University

  2006