Dr. Heather D. Alexander is an associate professor of forest and fire ecology and the Dwain G. Luce Endowed Professor of Forestry in the College of Forestry, Wildlife, and Environment at Auburn University, where she teaches classes in forest ecology and forest fire management. Her research program at Auburn focuses on understanding forest ecosystem vulnerability in the face of changing fire disturbance regimes using observations across natural gradients and field-based experimental manipulations. She has studied fire effects on the composition, structure, and function of oak, mixed wood, and pine forests of the eastern U.S. for 20 years and has a strong interest in understanding the implications of mesophication for carbon dynamics and forest flammability.

MaryKate Bullen leads Business Development and Sustainability at Forest Investment Associates (FIA), an investment manager overseeing $5.2 billion in assets across more than two million acres of forests in the U.S. and Latin America. She is responsible for capital raising, business development, and sustainability and serves on FIA’s Executive and Investment Committees, chairing the ESG Committee. Her investment experience in forest investment, carbon markets, and conservation finance spans the Americas, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. She is a Steering Committee member for the Women’s Forest Congress and actively contributes to multi-stakeholder and industry initiatives, including the GHG Protocol, Verra, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, and NAFO’s Global Forestry Task Group.

Dr. David Evison is currently an associate professor in the School of Forestry at Te Kura Ngahere at the University of Canterbury, in Christchurch, New Zealand. He carries out research in forest economics including investment returns from planted forests and competing land uses, wood processing and wood end uses, carbon forestry, economics of tree breeding, and international trade in forestry products. He teaches three undergraduate classes in Forest Economics, is course coordinator for Forest Products Marketing and supervises honors and postgraduate research. He also carries out contract research and consultancy for a range of New Zealand clients.
Previous work experience includes forestry research and management positions in forestry companies and the banking industry. David is a fellow and a registered member of the New Zealand Institute of Forestry. He is also a member of the NZ Agricultural and Resource Economics Society. He is a member of the Sustainability Programme Board, and the Cass Research Advisory Group at University of Canterbury. He served on the NZIF Council for 10 years, including two years as president. He was a trustee of the NZIF Foundation for eight years and is a member of the Victoria Benefactors’ Circle.

Dr. Zhaofei (Joseph) Fan is a professor of forest ecology and statistics in the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment at Auburn University. He received his PhD in quantitative silviculture and a master’s degree in statistics from the University of Idaho. He teaches forest resource sampling, biometrics, spatial statistics, and ecological modeling. His general research interests include applications of spatial statistics and GIS/RS/GPS/LiDAR in forest health and natural resource inventory monitoring and conservation. Specifically, he focuses on multiscale modeling of ecological processes and patterns of forest ecosystems such as biological invasions of nonnative invasive plants, forest regeneration and ecosystem resilience, forest growth, and carbon sequestration. He currently serves as the associate editor of Forest Science and Forestry Research.

Trisha Johnson began her career with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in 2006 after several years working in government and university roles. She currently serves as the director of carbon strategies for TNC’s Southern U.S. Division (SUSD), overseeing all aspects of carbon mitigation work within the Division (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia).
Johnson has held various positions in TNC’s Tennessee Business Unit. She spearheaded the first forest conservation program for the business unit, leveraging TNC into the forestry community. In this role, she co-authored Tennessee’s State Forest Action Plan, the 10-year comprehensive guide to coordinated strategies for investing resources in forest conservation and management. This foundation led to her to joining the business unit’s senior management team as the director of Tennessee’s Forest Carbon Program. She has been a leader throughout TNC in growing the organization’s engagement in voluntary carbon markets as a powerful tool to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and advance TNC’s conservation mission. She then expanded her work with TerraCarbon LLC., a B Corp certified leading global carbon advisory firm. She worked as the senior manager of operations engaging closely with clients and the TerraCarbon teams to support carbon offset projects to fund nature-based climate solutions (NBS).

Dr. Melissa M. Kreye is an associate professor of forest resources management in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management and an extension specialist at Pennsylvania State University. Her extension programs include the Forest Owner Carbon and Climate Education program and Effective Environmental Outreach Strategies. Recent research projects examine landowner interest in forest carbon payments and opportunities to use prescribed fire as a forest management tool.

Dr. Lili Li is a postdoctoral fellow in the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment at Auburn University. Her research interest lies in climate change, carbon pricing, forest carbon offset, sustainable energy transitions, environmental policy, and health policy. She is proficient in various qualitative and quantitative research methods. She received her PhD in Public Policy from the National University of Singapore and MSc degree in Environmental Science from Peking University.

Dr. Adam O. Maggard is a 2015 graduate of Oklahoma State University where he received his PhD in natural resource ecology and management. He also has master’s degrees in business management from the University of Florida (2008) and natural resource ecology and management from Oklahoma State University (2011). Adam received a B.S. in Forest Resources and Conservation from the University of Florida (2006). Currently, he is an Alabama Cooperative Extension System Specialist and the Harry E. Murphy Endowed Associate Professor in the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment at Auburn University, where he specializes in financial and economic aspects of forest management and planning, optimizing the use of forest resources, multiple use management and sustainability, the productivity of managed forest stands, business planning, and management of timber and non-timber forest products. In addition, he also teaches courses in forest management, business management for forest products, and leadership at Auburn University’s College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment.

Dr. Steven McNulty is a USDA Forest Service senior research ecologist, and the director of the USDA Southeast Climate Hub located in Research Triangle Park, NC. He has a PhD In Natural Resources and has spent over 40 years studying environmental stress impacts and adaptive management options for forests, agriculture, and rangelands. Dr. McNulty has co-authored over 300 publications on climate change impacts and ecosystem adaptation strategies with over 22,000 citations of his work. He is the recipient of the US Forest Service Distinguished Scientist Award, among other honors. He has served as a US Congressional Fellow, Forest Service Northern Research Station director, director of the National Forest Products Laboratory, climate change chair of the North American Forestry Commission, and coordinating lead author of the Southeast Chapter for Fifth National Climate Assessment. He is currently leading a group of over 300 scientists in the Updated Silvics of North America Project (USNAP).

Dr. Lana L. Narine is an assistant professor in the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment at Auburn University. Her research focuses on remote sensing of the environment and geospatial applications in natural resources and forestry. Her research includes developing and advancing approaches for extracting information from remote sensing systems and determining the synergistic utility of Earth observation data for assessing ecosystems. Dr. Narine and her students, along with her colleagues, have created methodologies and products to characterize and monitor forests at multiple spatial scales, using airborne and spaceborne lidar and other Earth observation data. Dr. Narine teaches GIS Applications in Natural Resources and Applications in Environmental Informatics in the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment at Auburn University.

Jeff Prestemon is a senior research forester and the Director of the Center for Economics and Social Science at the Southern Research Station of the USDA Forest Service. His research focuses on forest product markets, international trade policy, and the economics of forest-based disturbances. Dr. Prestemon has a B.S. in Forest Management from Iowa State University, an M.S. in Forest Economics from North Carolina State, and a PhD in Forest Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Daowei Zhang is Alumni and George Peake Professor of forest economics and policy and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment at Auburn University. He worked at the Ministry of Forestry, China Development Bank, and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Dr. Zhang has served on the Board of Directors of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation and Forest History Society and is a Society of American Foresters Fellow and the Editor-in-Chief for Forest Policy and Economics. He is currently working on forest carbon markets and the competitiveness of U.S. forest industry.