Outreach and events
Wheatland Seminar Series
The Barbara Wheatland Seminar Series seeks to recruit prominent speakers on advanced, cutting-edge research and applications of geospatial science and technology as they relate to forestry, conservation, climate change, and other areas of concern with the natural world.
The Barbara Wheatland Geospatial Seminar Series is supported by a grant from the Maine Timberlands Charitable Trust.
Seminars are currently being scheduled virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Previous seminars
Moving Beyond Enhanced Forest Inventory: Accelerating the Digitalization of the Forest Value-Chain
Date Seminar Title Speaker Title Affiliation
Wednesday December 1, 2021 From film to pixels and 3-dimensional maps: An introduction to Sewall Company’s aerial photograph collection at Fogler Library Paul Smitherman & Dave Sandilands Library Special Collections Specialist | Aerial Survey Pilot & Remote Sensing Technician Fogler Library & Wheatland Geospatial Lab
Wednesday November 17, 2021 Practical drone applications in cultural and natural resource management Stefan Claesson Principal, Certified UAS Mapping Scientist Nearview, LLC
Wednesday September 22, 2021 Maine’s landscape of light: studying ecology from ground and sky Peter Nelson Forest Ecology Program Director Schoodic Institute
Wednesday May 12, 2021 LiDAR Enhanced Forest Inventory – Demystified Tony Guay Remote Sensing Specialist & Instructor Wheatland Geospatial Lab | School of Forest Resources | University of Maine
Wednesday April 14, 2021 Seeing leaf spectra in light of evolution Jose Eduardo Meireles Assistant Professor of Plant Evolution and Systematics School of Biology and Ecology | University of Maine
Wednesday November 18, 2020 Anna K. Schweiger Postdoctoral Researcher University of Zurich & Université de Montréal
Wednesday November 4, 2020 Cassidy Rankine Director of Remote Sensing High Resolution Inventory Solutions (HRIS)
Wednesday October 14, 2020 Adam Dick Forest Research Project Leader Canadian Wood Fibre Centre | Canadian Forest Service
Wednesday April 17, 2019 Foliar Traits and Ecosystem Function at Broad Spatial Scales using NEON and NASA Imaging Spectroscopy Phil Townsend Professor Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology | University of Wisconsin
Wednesday April 3, 2019 Finding Maine’s Smallest Wetlands: Remote sensing, LiDAR, and the Elusive Vernal Pool Justin Schlawin Ecologist Maine Natural Areas Program
Wednesday March 13, 2019 Monitoring current and future forest carbon stores in the northwestern USA from Landsat time series, airborne lidar, and inventory plot data Andrew Hudak Research Forester Research and Development | USDA Forest Service
Wednesday February 6, 2019 Forest inventories for New England, derived using airborne laser scanning (LiDAR) and artificial intelligence Elias Ayrey PhD Candidate School of Forest Resources | University of Maine
Friday December 7, 2018 UMaine Intelligent GeoSolutions: high-value, low-cost geoinformatics for the management and study of complex landscapes Kasey Legaard Assistant Research Professor Center for Research on Sustainable Forests & School of Forest Resources | University of Maine
Friday November 30, 2018 The Drones are Here Jarlath O’Neil-Dunne Director Spatial Analysis Laboratory | University of Vermont & USDA Forest Service
Friday November 9, 2018 Adaptive management and planning for the conservation of species in a changing climate Jiban Chandra Deb Postdoctoral Fellow Forestry and Environmental Management | University of New Brunswick
Friday October 12, 2018 Process-based modeling of spruce budworm dispersal and disturbance Brian Sturtevant Research Landscape Ecologist Northern Research Station | USDA Forest Service
Wednesday May 2, 2018 Hierarchical models for sparsely sampled high-dimensional LiDAR and forest variables: An interior Alaska FIA case study Andrew Finley Associate Professor of Forest Management and Modeling Departments of Forestry & Geography | Michigan State University
Wednesday April 25, 2018 State of the Carbon Cycle of North America Richard Birdsey Senior Scientist Woods Hole Research Center
Wednesday April 18, 2018 Remote sensing techniques for detection and diagnosis of vegetation stress or damage Parinaz Rahimzadeh Assistant Research Professor of Remote Sensing School of Forest Resources | University of Maine
Wednesday March 28, 2018 Using ALS and Space LiDARs for Forest Inventory Ross Nelson Physical Scientist Earth Sciences | NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Wednesday December 6, 2017 Wow..I didn’t know remote sensing could do that! Nicholas Coops Associate Dean, Research and Innovation & Canada Research Chair in Remote Sensing University of British Columbia
Friday November 17, 2017 Applying Spatial Ecology to Ecosystem Management of the Northern Sierra Nevada Matthew Johnson USDA Forest Service
Wednesday November 15, 2017 Designing a climate-resilient conservation network for reptiles and amphibians in the northeastern United States Cynthia Loftin Unit Leader & Associate Professor of Wildlife Ecology USGS Maine Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit & Dept. of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology | University of Maine
Wednesday October 18, 2017 Is terrestrial net primary production a planetary boundary for the carbon cycle? Steven Running Regents Professor of Ecology University of Montana
Wednesday October 4, 2017 An overview of research progress on NASA’s Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) Scott Goetz Professor School of Informatics, Computing and Cyber Systems | Northern Arizona University
Wednesday September 13, 2017 Carbon cycle complexity on land and in the air: Challenges and solutions Kenneth Davis Professor of Meteorology Penn State
Wednesday April 19, 2017 Adoption of Carbon Credit Programs among SFI Participants in Maine Alison Truesdale Coordinator Keeping Maine’s Forests
Wednesday March 22, 2017 Earth’s Dynamic Forests: Pushing the Limits of Change Detectability with Remote Sensing Warren Cohen Professor Oregon State University
Wednesday February 22, 2017 The Future of US Forest Service Research and Development in Northern Forests Christopher Woodall Project Leader Northern Forest Science and Applications – Northern Research Station | USDA Forest Service
Wednesday November 30, 2016 Lidar-based Forest Inventory: From the Stand Level to the Globe Sean Healey Research Ecologist Rocky Mountain Research Station | USDA Forest Service
Friday November 4, 2016 Progress Towards Understanding the Magnitude of the Permafrost Carbon Feedback Dave McGuire Senior Scientist & Professor of Ecology USGS Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit & University of Alaska Fairbanks
Wednesday October 26, 2016 Canopy reflectance, carbon assimilation and mysteries lurking in the light we cannot see Scott Ollinger Professor of Natural Resources and Earth System Science University of New Hampshire
Wednesday October 12, 2016 What is Lidar and how can we use it for Natural Resource Management Brent Mitchell Lidar Specialist & Contract Leader RedCastle Resources, Inc.
Wednesday September 21, 2016 Drones, Lasers and Images: Remote Sensing to Manage Hardwoods Better at the Northern Hardwoods Research Institute Eduardo Bittencourt Research Chair in Precision Forestry Northern Hardwoods Research Institute
Wednesday September 7, 2016 Maine’s Geographic Information: Past, Present, and Future Joseph Young Director Maine Office of GIS & Maine Library of Geographic Information
Thursday May 5, 2016 Improving Fire Behavior Modeling through Remote Sensing Scott Goodrick Research Meteorologist Southern Research Station | USDA Forest Service