GLRC Members in College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science

Tara L. Bal

  • Assistant Professor, Forest Health
  • Master of Forestry Degree Program Director
  • Wood Protection Group, Microbiology/Pathology Lab Leader

Teaching Interests

  • Forest Health
  • Forest Entomology
  • Forest Pathology
  • Wild Foods, Maple Syrup & Culture
  • Professionalism

Areas of Expertise

  • Forest Health Management and Monitoring
  • Forest Education, Diversity and Inclusion in Forestry and Natural Resources
  • Invasion Ecology
  • Wood Decay Testing and Pathology
  • Insect, Fungi, and Environmental Education, Pedagogy
Rodney Chimner
"We are what we imagine ourselves to be."
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr
  • Professor

Areas of Expertise

  • Peatland and wetland restoration
  • Peatland and wetland carbon cycling
  • Mountain wetlands
  • Tropical peatlands
  • Ecosystem carbon cycling
  • Wetland ecohydrology
  • Assistant Professor, College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science
  • Affiliated Assistant Professor, Humanities

Research Interests

  • University-Community Partnerships, research engagement, and equitable practice and design
  • Environmental Justice and Policy, toxic substances, risk management, and promoting holistic health
  • Indigenous / Native American Studies, treaties and the government-to-government relationship, food sovereignty, and Indigenous wisdom in the Great Lakes region
  • Environmental Stewardship and the Seven Generations Philosophy
  • Professor

Areas of Expertise

  • Soil carbon
  • Plant/soil relationships
  • Decomposition
  • Dissolved organic carbon
  • Wildfire
  • Black carbon
Erik Keranen

Erik Keranen

  • Assistant Research Scientist

Areas of Expertise

  • Wood protection
  • Wood composites
  • Physical and mechanical properties testing of wood and wood composites
  • Field-testing of wood products for decay and insect resistance
Fengjing Liu
"Water is the new oil: a resource long squandered and soon to be overwhelmed by insatiable demand."
—The Economist
  • Associate Professor

Areas of Expertise

  • Ecohydrology and forest hydrology
  • Hydrological and biogeochemical processes in snowmelt-dominated watersheds
  • Black ash wetland ecosystem processes 
  • Professor of Practice in Forest Biomaterials
  • Coordinator of Industrial Research, Innovation, and Commercialization
  • Director of Ford Center and Forest

Areas of Expertise

  • Forest Biomaterials
  • Tree biomechanics
  • Wind and trees
  • Dendrochronology
  • Extension and Outreach
  • Assistant Professor

Fields of Expertise

  • Wildlife conservation in working landscapes
  • Temperate and tropical avian ecology
  • Demographic modeling
  • Avian molts and plumage
  • Associate Professor of Forest Biomaterials

Areas of Expertise

  • Carbon materials derived from wood, lignin, and cellulose
  • Integrated thermochemical conversion and fractionation of lignocellulosic biomass
  • Carbon-polymer composites and hybrid materials
  • Wood protection and preservation
  • Wood properties, quality, and modification