Lauren Lad
Ph.D. Student in Forest Sciences
Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship
Forestry 126a
Lauren.Lad@colostate.edu
B.A. Environmental & Sustainability Studies (2019)
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
Lauren’s work focuses on the use of drones for high resolution fire effects monitoring. Her work will utilize a combination of laboratory-based combustion experiments and field assessments of prescribed burns for the development of new remote sensing indices. These indices will integrate spectral and structural variables for a comprehensive assessment of fire effects. Ultimately, her work will be used to inform land managers on the risk and impact of fires.
Casey Menick
M.S. Student in Forest Sciences
Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship
Forestry 126a
Casey.Menick@colostate.edu
B.S. Biology, Environmental Sciences & Environmental Studies (2014)
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, Wisconsin
Casey’s work will evaluate the use of snow-on satellite imagery for monitoring conifer regeneration in post-fire high-severity patches. Her work will integrate remote sensing and landscape ecology to understand the minimum detectable level of regeneration and then apply this method across time to investigate the ecological theories of how conifers recolonize large high-severity patches. This work has potential to fill knowledge gaps surrounding the ecological processes of fire recovery and provide targeted guidance on how restorations efforts could assist natural recovery processes.
George Woolsey
M.S. Student in Forest Sciences
Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship
Forestry 126a
George.Woolsey@colostate.edu
B.A. Economics (2008) M.A. Economics (2012)
University of San Diego San Diego State University
San Diego, California San Diego, California
Work emphasis forthcoming…
Katarina Warnick (starting summer 2022)
M.S. Student in Forest Sciences
Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship
Forestry 126a
Katarina.Warnick@colostate.edu
B.S. Natural Resource Management (2017)
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado
Work emphasis forthcoming…
2021 Field Crew
Research Associates and Graduate Students
Laura Hanna Lauren Lad
Rachel Hatfield Andy Carlino
Neal Swayze Justin Ziegler
Gunnar Ohlson Sophie Bonner
Anna Freundlich
Undergraduate Technicians
Helen Flynn Faith Kelly
Sophie Corioso Ariel Demarest
Mario Cardoza-Reyes Chase Coggins
Frank Harris
2019 Field Crew
Research Associates and Graduate Students
Jillian Laroe
Stephen Fillipeli
Jessica Wong
Undergraduate Researchers
Nie Nie Miejia Li
Dustin Fox Linlin Shi
Undergraduate Technicians
Hayden Taylor
Rachael O’Neill
2018 Field Crew
Undergraduate Technicians
Taylor Richmond (Crew Lead)
Alexis Conley
Alexa Binkley
Adam Langemeier
Brandon Hoem
Lab Alumni
Matthew Creasy
Graduated with M.Sc. in Forest Resources (2020)
Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship
B.A. Geography (2015)
Macalester College, Saint Paul, Minnesota
Matt’s completed his Masters while investigating the use of Structure from Motion photogrammetry techniques for ultra-small drone-based mapping of forest carbon. Part of his work compared the effects of data acquisition parameters and forest structural on the precision of stand-level carbon estimates. His second study evaluated our ability to map individual trees within overstocked ponderosa pine dominated forests. Ultimately, this work will provide guidance on the use of drones for monitoring forest restoration and carbon stocks.
Matt is currently working for a surveying and engineering company, where he established a new UAS surveying program to augment the companies capabilities.
Neal Swayze
Graduated with M.Sc. in Forest Resources (2020)
Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship
B.S. Ecosystem Science and Sustainability (2018)
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
Neal completes his Maters on work evaluating how flight parameters impact the extraction of individual trees and modeling of tree DBH using UAS Structure from Motion data. His work made a critical step towards advancing UAS for monitoring forest structure for both spatially dependent and aerial-based summarization. This work was presented to regional managers to stimulate a discussion of drone-based monitoring for ecologically informed forest management.
Neal is currently a research associate working for multiple labs conducting research from UAS-based ultra-high resolution monitoring of rare-plants and modeling of individual trees, to modeling of forest structure and biomass using GEDI across the western United States.
Laura Hanna
Graduated with M.Sc. in Forest Resources (2022)
Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship
B.S. Forest Biology (2019)
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado
Laura Masters work evaluated the potential for UAS-based remote sensing to assess post-treatment horizontal and vertical forest structure complexity across a range of ponderosa pine-dominated forests treated to meet various objectives in the Black Hills National Forest. This work demonstrated the ability of UAS forest monitoring to reliably represent forest structures across the gradient of complexity that managers emphasize. Additionally, this data was able to be summarized across a variety of spatial and non-spatial metrics from tree, group, and stand scales.
Laura is transitioning to a new position with the Mountain Studies Institute to help run their monitoring program.