Graduate Student Research Topics | Forestry, Fire, & Rangeland Management

Current Students

Trevor Haltermann
Thesis: Evaluation of the CalFire methodology for determining the origin point of a wildfire.
Advisor: David Greene

Kelsey Fletterick
Thesis: The Brief Window for Early Post-fire Regeneration.
Advisor: David Greene

Heather Rickard
Thesis: Factors contributing to legacy hardwood mortality following prescribed fire
Advisor: Jeffrey Kane

Jackson Carrasco
Thesis: Post-fire mortality rates and regeneration within second-growth redwood stands
Advisor: Jeffrey Kane

Kaily Fineran
Thesis: Prescribed fire treatment longevity in legacy hardwood stands of the Klamath Mountains
Advisor: Jeffrey Kane

Joe Nicholas
Thesis: Response of fuels and vegetation to high severity fire in mixed evergreen forests of the Klamath Mountains.
Advisor: Jeffrey Kane

Catriona Barr
Thesis: Assessing human community recovery after wildfire
Advisor: Erin Kelly

Claire Anderson
Thesis: The evolution of private lands forest policies in California and Oregon
Advisor: Erin Kelly

Lonyx Landry
Thesis: Soil sampling for Phytophthora spp.
Advisor: Susan Edinger Marshall

Jill Beckmann
Thesis: The effects of severe drought on radial stem growth of Oregon white oak
Advisor: Rosemary Sherriff

Lindsay Benjamin-Brittany
Thesis: Assessment of Carbon Storage and Aquifer Recharge in Beaver Meadows of the Sierra Nevada, USA
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

Preston Selby
Thesis: Evaluation of thinning on stream thermal conditions in coastal Redwood riparian forests.
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

Andre Sanchez
Thesis: Quantifying summer water budget use by fir and oak trees within overtopped and released forest stands.
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

Kayla Fitzpatrick
Thesis: Water Quality Assessment of the Klamath River
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

Zachary Erickson
Thesis: Integrating ways of knowing: utilizing tribal management perspectives to guide modern silviculture methods in cooperative forest management
Advisor: Pascal Berrill

Judson Fisher
Thesis: Mitigating wildfire hazard in the redwoods: effectiveness and trade-offs of fuels treatments
Advisor: Pascal Berrill

Robert Raibley (co-advised)
Thesis: The effects of post-harvest residue on plantation forest regeneration of redwood and Douglas-fir
Advisor: Pascal Berrill

Ernesto Chavez-Velasco
Thesis: Integrating plant traits with site characterizations to support biodiverse California coastal grassland restoration
Advisor: Justin Luong

Graduated

2022

Madeleine Lopez
Thesis: Investigating seed maturation and mortality: a mechanism for post-fire regeneration in non-serotinous conifers
Advisor: Jeffrey Kane

Brita Goldstein
Thesis: Protecting public trust resources in America's private forests: case studies in the diversity of U.S. state-level forestry policies
Advisor: Erin Kelly

Sophia Lemmo
Thesis: Drought, tree mortality, and regeneration in Northern California
Advisor: Lucy Kerhoulas

Gabriel Roletti
Thesis: Drought responses across diverse conifer species, habitats, and competitive gradients in Northern California
Advisor: Lucy Kerhoulas

Zachary Gigone
Thesis: Sediment production from forest roads in areas affected by the August Complex fire in Northern California
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

2021

Katherine Marlin
Thesis: Post-fire regeneration of the serotinous Knobcone pine
Advisor: David Greene

Abigail Jones
Thesis: Post-fire effects in chaparral and oak ecosystems of northern California
Advisor: Jeffrey Kane

Dana Dysthe
Thesis: The politics of biomass energy in California: how external benefits are used to support an economically marginal sector
Advisor: Erin Kelly

Cherilyn Ashmead
Thesis: In-flux: economic and community adaptations of former timber mill-towns in the American West
Advisor: Erin Kelly

Hailee Nolte
Thesis: Alone on the range? Rangeland stakeholder perceptions of public lands, community change and maintaining rural livelihoods
Advisor: Erin Kelly

Gabriel Goff
Thesis: Conifer encroachment and removal in a Northern California oak woodland: Influences on ecosystem physiology and biodiversity
Advisor: Lucy Kerhoulas

Wallis Robinson
Thesis: Influences on conifer drought responses in Northern California
Advisor: Lucy Kerhoulas

Danielle Jones
Thesis: A comparison of the removal of estrogen between different wastewater treatment processes
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

2020

Erik Arndt
Thesis: "This is home:" pictures, place meaning, and community in the natural-amenity-rich Del Norte County, California
Advisor: Erin Kelly

Theodora Doyon
Thesis: From screen to summit: an investigation of claims about social media use for outdoor recreation purposes
Advisor: Erin Kelly

Ariel Weisgrau
Thesis: Intraspecific water exchange via common mycorrhizal networks
Advisor: Lucy Kerhoulas

Kevin Soland
Thesis: Efficacy of forest restoration across a 40-year chronosequence in Redwood National Park
Advisor: Lucy Kerhoulas

Chris Faubion
Thesis: Sediment production and delivery from timber harvest roads in Humboldt County, California
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

Keath Sakihara
Thesis: Aspen growth response in the presence of inter-annual climate fluctuation and disturbance in the Lake Tahoe Basin
Advisor: Pascal Berrill

2019

Alexis Bernal
Thesis: Mechanisms and spatial patterns of bark beetle-associated mortality following variable density thinning treatments in a sierra mixed-conifer forest
Advisor: Jeffrey Kane

Caroline Martorano
Thesis: Long-term effectiveness of fuel treatments in oak and chaparral stands of Northern California
Advisor: Jeffrey Kane

Chance Callahan
Thesis: Effects of thinning and prescribed burning on tree resistance to extreme drought in a Sierra Nevada mixed-conifer forest, California USA
Advisor: Harold Zald

Cerena Brewen
Thesis: Multidecadal change in aspen experiencing long-unburned, mixed-severity wildfire, and reburn disturbance regimes
Advisor: Pascal Berrill

Kurt Schneider
Thesis: Understory light, regeneration, and browsing effects in irregular structures created by partial harvesting in coast redwood stands
Advisor: Pascal Berrill

Robert Muma
Thesis: Converting coast redwood/ Douglas-fir forests to multiaged management; residual stand damage, growth, and regeneration response
Advisor: Pascal Berrill

2018

Bret McNamara
Thesis: Post-fire regeneration and fuel succession patterns in Baker cypress (Hesperocyparis bakeri) forests
Advisor: Jeffrey Kane

Marisa Formosa
Thesis: Learning from a restoration innovator: Building community capitals and resilience through the restoration economy
Advisor: Erin Kelly

Sara Matthews
Thesis: Implications of unmanned aircraft systems and sense of place: A case study in the Mono Basin
Advisor: Erin Kelly

Laura B. Lalemand
Thesis: Restoration and tree drought resistance in coast redwood-Douglas-fir forests at Redwood National Park, California
Advisor: Rosemary Sherriff

Diedra Rodriguez
Thesis: Persistence of stream restoration with large wood, Redwood National and State Parks, California
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

2017

Michael Vernon
Thesis: In the face of drought: Do fuel treatments promote resistance to multi-year drought in a mixed-conifer forest of northern California?
Advisor:

Jodie Pixley
Thesis: All-lands management: Convening communities and their lands around fire management
Advisor: Erin Kelly

Ivan Medel
Thesis: Sedimentation and erosion patterns within anabranching channels in a lowland river restoration project
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

Kirsten Reddy
Thesis: An examination of water consumption during and after severe drought in coastal stands of Douglas-fir in the Pacific northwest
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

Walter Kast
Thesis: Finding nondestructive parameters for root-to-shoot ratios in Douglas-fir, grand fir, and redwood saplings in northwest California for biomass and carbon storage estimates
Advisor: Pascal Berrill

2016

Andrew Slack
Thesis: Large sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana) vigor and mortality in a fire-excluded forest of the central Sierra Nevada.
Advisor: Jeffrey Kane

Alica Jones
Thesis: Seeing the forest for the redwood trees: understanding the social impacts of a protected area on a local community ? a northern California case study.
Advisor: Erin Kelly

Alexander Wick
Thesis: Adaptive management of a riparian zone in the lower Klamath River basin, northern California : the effects of riparian harvest on canopy closure, water temperatures and baseflow
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

Jeffrey Paulson
Thesis: Logistics of integrating a biomass conversion technology into a centralized biomass recovery operation supply chain.
Advisor: Han-Sup Han

Chris Valness
Thesis: Performance and morphology in Sequoiadendron genotypes outside of their range
Advisor: Pascal Berrill

2015

Madelinn Schriver
Thesis: Stand and tree growth characteristics of Quercus garryana and Quercus kelloggi woodlands in northwestern California
Advisor:

Nichole Besyk
Thesis: Predicting phosphorus retention in two Haplohumult forest soils of northern California
Advisor:

Radeslow Glebocki
Thesis: Fuel loading and moisture dynamics in thinned coast redwood ? Douglas-fir forests in Headwaters Forest Reserve, California
Advisor:

Zawisza Grabinski-Parker
Thesis: Reburn severity interactions over 30 years in the Klamath Mountains ecoregion, California, USA
Advisor:

Nathan Queener
Thesis: Spatial and temporal variability in baseflow and stream drying in the Mattole River headwaters.
Advisor:

Marissa Schmitz
Thesis: Analyzing access to California’s regulatory forest offset market
Advisor: Erin Kelly

Joanna Di Tommaso
Thesis: “If someone wants my carbon, let them pay”: examining nonindustrial private forest owner (NIPF) interest in selling forest carbon credits under California’s
Advisor: Erin Kelly

Dylan Loudon
Thesis: Analysis of coastal wetland geography and policy in Humboldt Bay: adapting wetland policies for a changing climate.
Advisor: Erin Kelly

Celeste Melosh
Thesis: Modeling runoff levels over impervious surfaces in the Lake Tahoe basin using varying data resolution.
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

2014

Hai Vuong
Thesis: Using liDAR to estimate the total aboveground live biomass of redwood stands in South Fork Caspar Creek Watershed, Jackson Demonstration State Forest, Mendocino, California.
Advisor:

Amy Livingston
Thesis: Plant community responses to fire exclusion, species invasions, and restoration in California woodlands and grasslands.
Advisor:

Tim Montgomery
Thesis: Modeling work plan logistics for biomass recovery operations using spatial analysis.
Advisor:

Christopher Kirk
Thesis: Second log branch analysis of redwood and Douglas-fir
Advisor: Pascal Berrill

Bobby Howe
Thesis: Coast redwood growth response to herbicide treatment of tanoak
Advisor: Pascal Berrill

2013

Lea Bond
Thesis: Using distributed temperature sensing fiber-optics and heat source modeling to characterize a northern California stream’s thermal regime
Advisor:

2012

Sara Hanna
Thesis: Long-term, post-fire dynamics of a sagebrush steppe community in northeastern California.
Advisor:

Brian Huggett
Thesis: Modeling six years of stream discharge using the distributed hydrology soil vegetation model (DHSVM) in a coastal, timber harvest catchment, Humboldt County, California.
Advisor:

Nick Harrison
Thesis: Understanding the effects of soil exposure in fuels treatments that balance fuel reduction and erosion control in the Tahoe basin.
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

Brandon Namm
Thesis: Root morphology and belowground carbon storage in tanoak (Notholithocarpus densiflorus)
Advisor: Pascal Berrill

2011

Chantell Royer
Thesis: Building a foundation for coordinated water quality monitoring in the Klamath River basin.
Advisor:

Matt Cocking
Thesis: The Role of Native Conifer Encroachment and the Return of Fire to California Black Oak Ecosystems in Northern California.
Advisor:

Sungnome Madrone
Thesis: Fine sediment sources of coastal watersheds with uplifted marine terraces in Northwest Humboldt County, California.
Advisor:

Trever Parker
Thesis: Fluorometry as a bacterial source tracking tool in coastal watersheds, Trinidad, California.
Advisor:

Joél Benegar
Thesis: Evaluation of constructed wood jams in a forest, gravelbed stream
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

Kelley Reid
Thesis: An assessment of gravel bar texture and composition following in-channel mining in the Mad River, California.
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

2010

Eamon Engber
Thesis: Fuelbed heterogeneity, flammability, and restoration of historically fire frequent oak woodlands with fire.
Advisor:

Claire Knopf
Thesis: A permeability study on salmonid spawning riffles in the Little River drainage and Canon Creek in Northern Humboldt County, California.
Advisor:

2008

Gregg Bousfield
Thesis: Peakflow prediction using an antecedent precipitation index in small forested watersheds of the Northern California Coast Range.
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield

Larry Maurin
Thesis: First-year erosion responses following stream channel crossing fill removal in Redwood National and State Parks, Northwestern California. M.S. Thesis, Humboldt State University, Arcata, California.
Advisor: Andrew Stubblefield