Experience

OSU Global Hemp Innovation Center (GHIC)

• United States
• Research Services
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Data Manager

  • Jul 2020 - Present

  For these first two years of the Global Hemp Innovation Center at Oregon State University, I have served as data manager for the center, helping to coordinate data collection and management for field trials at participating Oregon State University Research and Extension Centers and land-grant universities across the US. These duties have included designing database structures for housing data from field trials; designing field forms for data collection; designing, printing, and delivering bar-coded tags for field trials; designing and delivering a data collection application for portable devices (smart phones, tablets) for reading bar-coded plant tags in the field, recording required data elements, and uploading to a cloud-based database; and helping coordinate collection of plant samples from field trials for lab analysis, and resulting statistical analysis of lab data.



Oregon State University

• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• Senior Faculty Research Assistant

  • Nov 2012 - Present

  During the past several years I was a part of a team of scientists from Oregon State University, Portland State University, and the USDA Forest Service (USFS) that worked on helping inform the USFS’s National Investment Strategy for reducing wildfire risk to communities throughout the US. This work has included the development of the Fireshed Registry Online Application (described here: https://www.iawfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/BP2-Fireshed-Registry.pdf), which is helping the USFS focus on implementing wildfire mitigation strategies (forest restoration activities such as canopy thinning, prescribed burns, etc.) in areas having the highest wildfire risk to communities. The online application is currently only accessible inside the Forest Service network, but may at some point be migrated to be publicly available via ESRI’s ArcGIS Online architecture. This work resulted in USDA Forest Service Chief’s and Under Secretary’s awards for our team in November 2020. Other major projects, in collaboration with the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region’s Ecology and Soils programs, have included developing a spatial soils database for all National Forests in the Pacific Northwest; researching and developing techniques for modeling drought-prone forest soils at regional scales to provide inputs to federal forest planning and management activities; and assisting in the development of a regional spatial layer of Landtype Associations based on geomorphology, soils, and potential vegetation. Additional projects have included helping develop a regional forest structure restoration needs analysis; helping develop a regional forest planning database for the US Forest Service; and providing GIS mapping and analysis support to the Crop and Soil Science Forage Program, including GIS-based modeling of suitability zones for clover and alfalfa.

• Faculty Research Assistant

  • Feb 2012 - Nov 2012

  Spatial modeling of the risks and potential impacts of energy exploration and production, in particular deep water oil development.



Tetra Tech

• United States
• Civil Engineering
• 700 & Above Employee

• GIS Programmer/Analyst

  • Oct 2009 - Feb 2012

  Contracted to the US Forest Service Ecology Program (Regions 1 & 6) to provide GIS programming, spatial analysis, and spatial data development. Also served as GIS lead and core team member of the Region 6 Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment Team. Provided GIS support to a Multiple Threats and Value Assessment for Forest Service Region 6. This project was in collaboration with the Western Wildlands Environmental Threat Assessment Center (WWETAC), in which we are exploring new methods to provide managers with information on the co-occurance of wildand threats and the values they affect on National Forest lands in Washington and Oregon. Other Forest Service projects included: Assist in re-design and development of GIS portion of Ecological Information Clearinghouse website (http://ecoshare.info); preparation of raster GIS datasets and maps of potential vegetation, plant association groups and FRCC for public download, including preparation of FGDC-compliant metadata. Calculation of Fire Regime Condition Class (FRCC) for Washington and Oregon using ArcGIS Spatial Analyst. Develop models and scripts in ArcMap (Python, VBA, Model Builder) for a variety of GIS tasks including derivation of forested stand year of origin from fire history and related layers; pre-processing of data layers for input into Fire Regime Condition Class models; processing of several thousand spatial layers depicting projections of numerous climate variables over different time periods and spatial extents, and derived using different global climate models (GCMs).



U.S. Forest Service

• United States
• Government Administration
• 700 & Above Employee

• GIS Programmer/Analyst

  • Oct 2004 - Oct 2009

  Designed and developed numerous raster GIS models (e.g., cold air drainage, topographic roughness, evapotranspiration) and tools in support of ArcInfo Grid-based application for prediction of vegetation zones and plant association groups across the Pacific Northwest. Developed and maintained GIS layers used in the modeling process, including weather station-based precipitation and temperature, fire history and forested stand year of origin, NED DEM, NLCD landcover, NRCS soils, ecology plot measurement data and geology and regolith data. Developed a wide variety of map atlases in ArcMap 9.x of vegetation zones, plant associations, geology and regolith, soils, fire history and stand year of origin, and color orthophototogaphy. Developed high-quality maps and graphics for presentations and for publication. Researched scientific literature in support of model development and enhancement, in areas including geomorphometry (land surface analysis), cold air drainage, potential evapotranspiration and soil and geology effects on potential vegetation types.



Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

• Cadastral Project Manager/GIS Analyst

  • Jan 2002 - Jun 2004

  Analyzed business needs of agency for information on the agency's owned and controlled lands.Designed data model in Visio for geodatabase of Agency owned and controlled lands for ArcGIS and MS SQL Server.Worked closely with end users to assess data needs, and develop use cases to test database design.Designed and implemented pilot mapping project on two of the agency's Wildlife Areas.

• GIS Manager / Technical Services Manager / GIS Analyst

  • Jun 1992 - Dec 2001

  Supervised up to five GIS analysts, cartographers, applications developers and technical support staff in a wide range of GIS and applications development projects.Provided end-user support for over 100 staff in areas of hardware and software support, including support for ArcInfo, ArcView, Powerbuilder applications, and Microsoft Office products.Researched, recommended and purchased GIS software and hardware, including Arc/Info, ArcView and assorted PC software, plotters, digitizers, PCs and Sun UNIX workstations.Scheduled GIS projects.Helped plan and implement migration of GIS systems from UNIX-based Arc/Info to Windows 2000-based ArcGIS.Wrote extensive menu system in Arc Macro Language (AML) for field personnel to access GIS data layers, including ability to query, filter and view the data, and to compose and print maps and reports.Performed complex analyses on a wide variety of GIS data types, including analysis of TM-derived landcover data using Arc/Info’s GRID module; analysis of riparian data on stream networks using dynamic segmentation; habitat analyses for a variety of wildlife species.



Complex Systems Research Center (University of New Hampshire)

• Research Scientist

  • 1985 - 1990

  Wrote new and modified existing mathematical models (in FORTRAN) depicting the oceans' circulation and role in the global carbon cycle; methods used were not "classical", and so procedures needed to be somewhat eclectic and creative. Aided in the design of computing facilities for our expanding research group. Design included mainframe and networked PC's, workstations, and graphics equipment, as well as management requirments. Wrote technical reports and research summaries for funding agencies, and research articles for the scientific literature.