Student Profiles
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We value our international students for the world perspective they bring to our activities and for their role as global ambassadors advocating responsible forest and environmental stewardship. Many of our students are interested in international issues and their research sites stretch as wide as the globe.
Meet some students currently pursuing advanced degrees focused on international topics within the Department of Forestry & Environmental Resources.
Current FER Students
Rodrigo Arriagada — PhD Candidate, Forest Economics
Funded by a Zobel research grant from the department and a research fellowship from the Organization for Tropical Studies, Rodrigo earned his Master of Science degree from NC State in 2005. He spent two months working with rice farmers to understand rice production and the connection between agriculture and wetland conservation. Currently, as a doctoral candidate, Rodrigo’s dissertation is evaluating the causal effect of the Costa Rican Program of Payments for Environmental Services. In 2007, Rodrigo obtained a dissertation improvement grant from the National Science Foundation and a research grant from the Latin American and the Caribbean Environmental Program (www.laceep.org). With this new funding, Rodrigo plans to scale up the analysis of the Costa Rican program in order to obtain national estimates of program impact.
Stibniati S. Atmadja — PhD Candidate, Natural Resource Economics
Stibniati is interested in the linkages between poverty and natural resource management. Her dissertation focuses on time preference (the preference for consuming something now rather than later), because it is one of the factors that link the two issues together. She studies how time preferences affects intertemporal decisions related to disease prevention, forest investments and estate planning. Study sites include the state of Maharashtra, India and rural North Carolina. She also worked on a research project with ICRAF Southeast Asia, studying the livelihood impacts and estimating the profitability of a Community-based Forest Management initiative for forest farmers in East Java, Indonesia.
Simone C. Bauch — Pursuing Ph.D. in Forest Economics
Simone studies the role and dissemination of information in non-timber forest product markets in Brazil. Based on previous work experience and on-going research in the Brazilian Amazon, she's focusing on regional markets for products from the islands of the Amazon estuary. Since these markets are usually imperfect, information is a valuable asset for each link in the supply chain, influencing prices, quality and networks of producers, middlemen and vendors. Simone is analyzing survey data to figure out how this all happens.
Luis Carrasco — PhD Candidate in GIS as applied to Natural Resource Management
Luis’s project focuses on aspects of spatial scale and strategy applied to environmental impact assessment of regional policies at the national and international level. He is applying these elements to areas such as renewable biobased energy adoption, urban infrastructure and the environment, and rural land use policies.
Greg Frey — Ph.D.Candidate, Forest Economics
Greg is studying agroforestry as a tool for sustainable production of agricultural and forest products. He has spent significant time observing silvopasture systems (combinations of native or plantation forests with livestock) and their practitioners in northern Argentina. He has also been investigating the social and economic impacts of silvopasture systems, in particular exploring the similarities and differences in adoption motives and system implementation between farmers of different scales.
Ellen Haynes - Pursuing MS in Natural Resources
Ellen is currently serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo as part of the Masters International Program. She is posted in the town of Babadè, in the central region of Togo, near Park Fazao. Bushmeat hunting is a major threat to the fauna of this park, as is typical of protected areas in West Africa. Ellen is surveying poachers about their attitudes towards the park, their reasons for hunting in the park, and the economic benefits and costs of engaging in the bushmeat trade.
Jin Huang - Ph.D. candidate, Forest Economics
Jin Huang got her Masters in Statistics in 2005. Her current research focuses on studying forest management adaptation to climate change and extreme events, i.e. how climate change might affect forest managers’ decision making. She plans to participate in IIASA 2007 Young Scientists Summer Program to Austria in the summer of 2007 to research topics related to her dissertation. She will give presentation in 2007 Amsterdam Conference of Global Environmental Change this May. She did an internship with The Nature Conservancy in the summer of 2003.
Sadharga ‘Hargo’ Koesbandana – Pursuing Ph.D. in Forestry and Environmental Resources
Hargo is interested in doing research in forest policy and economics. A native of Indonesia, a country rich in tropical biodiversity but also very densely populated, he entered the program to find a better understanding and pragmatic solutions for the complex real problem in the field. There are three concentration areas that he is working on right now for possible project proposals: policy impacts of protected area expansion on environment and local communities; local costs and benefits of protecting biodiversity hotspots; and actualization of policy processes in advancing conservation goals. He is looking for a chance to visit Halimun-Salak National Park in Indonesia, Iracambi Atlantic Rainforest in Brazil and other interesting places around the world.
Hargo posed in front of moose grazing ground, Rocky Mount, CO, June 2006.
Shubhayu Saha — PhD candidate, Forest Economics
Shubhayu's doctoral dissertation is examining the impacts of increase in milk and meat processing plants on land use choices made by small farmers in the Amazon frontier of Rondonia in Brazil. While farmers' income from milk and meat has significantly increased, it is unclear if they have invested to intensify their pastoral land use systems, or if they continue to extensify converting more forest to pasture. From a broader policy perspective, his research evaluates if the evolution of the cattle industry has created a win-win scenario of improving the quality of life of migrant farmers and reduced the alarmingly high rates of deforestation in the Amazon frontier. In 2006, a National Science Foundation grant allowed Shubhayu to conduct detailed interviews with personnel in the milk and meat processing plants to gather historical data about development of the market for milk and meat. Using this panel dataset, he plans to develop spatial econometric models to test if farmers responded by intensifying their milk and meat production systems following the evolution of the markets for these products in the region.
Scott Sink - Pursuing PhD in Forestry and Environmental Resources
Scott's research is in the temperate rainforest near the town of Valdivia, Chile. He has spend time measuring and studying the ecology of old growth and second growth forests to determine silvicultural techniques necessary to manage for old growth conditions in the Llancahue watershed.
Recent FER Graduates
Katie Caldwell — M.S. in Natural Resources
Katie’s thesis was on “Determining Importance Values for Medicinal Plants in Ghana.” In the summer of 2006, she conducted surveys and interviews on medicinal plant uses. She ranked plant species by several quantitative ethno botanical methods and compared the results to evaluate methods, variation in use/knowledge across socio-demographic groups, and how knowledge is transferred between generations.
Nevin Dawson — Masters International Program
Nevin was an agroforestry volunteer in Senegal from 2003 to 2004. He returned to do his research on cashew intercropping adoption in 2005. He studied the process of adoption in spatial and social terms, and proposed extension practices that would increase the speed and dispersion of cashew or similar agroforestry technology adoption. Nevin graduated with a M.S. in Forestry in August 2006 and is currently the Forest Stewardship Educator at the Wye Research and Education Center on Maryland Eastern Shore. To read his thesis, click here.
Gill Green — Masters International Program
Gill’s Master of Science research was conducted with Mbororo and Fulbe families on the Adamaoua Plateau of Cameroon. He examined the relationship of households' geographic location and ethnicity to natural resource management practices in a proposed conservation area. His current work on a PhD dissertation at McGill University examines institutional change in post-conflict areas. To read Gill's thesis, click here.
Kelly (Jones) Wendland — Masters International Program
Kelly was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the north of Togo from 2002 to 2004, where she was an agricultural and environmental extension agent. Her activities focused on teaching women how to cultivate and use soybeans in their diet, introducing farmers to inter-cropping with soil-improving plants and helping to start communiy gardens and tree nurseries. Her Masters International research focused on the adoption of new technologies, specifically soybean farming by rural families. She graduated in May 2005 with a Masters of Science in International Resources with a minor in statistics. Kelly is currently working at Conservation International. To review her Masters thesis, click here.
