Each month College of Natural Resources faculty receive awards and grants from various federal, state, and nongovernmental agencies in support of their research. This report recognizes the faculty who received funding in July 2025.

Expanding the Scope and Nature of Theoretical Frameworks to Understand Adult Learning in the Participatory Sciences

• PI: Cooper, Caren
• Direct Sponsor Name: National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Awarded Amount: $499,977 
• Abstract:  The aim of the proposed AISL Synthesis project is to assess and bolster the theoretical foundations for understanding learning in the participatory sciences. Participatory sciences, ranging from citizen science to community science, are informal science learning environments. Current practices for the participatory sciences vary across disciplines such as environmental sciences, astronomy, biochemistry, and conservation. Public engagement across multiple disciplines has prompted examination of a wide range of possible learning outcomes. While learning theories remain foundational to the participatory sciences, we aim to expand the theoretical foundation for the highly heterogeneous and complex phenomenon of participatory sciences so that research and practice can support engagement in lifelong STEM learning.
  

Ecological Forecasting Tools for Movement Track Management at the Yukon-to-Yellowstone Migration Corridor

• PI: Kays, Roland
• Direct Sponsor Name: National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA)
• Awarded Amount: $18,153 
• Abstract:  The Yellowstone to Yukon Corridor (Y2Y) is North America’s largest nature corridor and connectivity project for wildlife. The 2,000-mile swath of land between Yellowstone National Park and the Yukon of Canada is one of the last remaining intact mountain ecosystems on Earth, and home to many endangered and at-risk species. The Y2Y is a mosaic of protected and unprotected land including Canadian and US national parks, federally managed wildland and national forests, state/province/territory parks, Indigenous territories, and privately managed conservation easements. Our project will focus on developing a common animal movement archive for the Y2Y, and research tools to study the effectiveness of protected areas, and migration and movement connectivity that will be applied by our end users throughout the Y2Y.
  

Regional Synthesis of Threats to Forest Carbon and Water Cycling Across the US Southeast

• PI: King, John
• Direct Sponsor Name: US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service
• Amount Awarded: $35,000 
• Abstract: The southern US is host to ~130 million hectares of forestland distributed (approximately) as 37 % upland hardwoods, 15 % bottomland hardwoods, 14 % mixed oak-pine, 18 % natural pine and 15 % intensively managed pine.  In recent decades, this forest estate has becoming increasingly vulnerable to an array of threats.  As the pace of climate change increases and the South becomes increasingly urbanized, the extent to which forest ecosystem services provisioning is compromised remains poorly quantified. Yet through existing networks of forest monitoring programs, process-based ecosystem and landscape models, and remote sensing resources, we have the capacity to develop synthetic understanding of current regional forest conditions across the South.  The proposed project will perform a region-wide synthesis of existing data on forest carbon (C) and water cycling using data from the USDA Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program to quantify current forest C storage of the major forest types distributed across the region.  We will pair the forest C inventory data with long-term data on forest C and water cycling (GPP, NEP/NEE, NPP, ET, hydrology) from the Ameriflux Program, of which we are long-term members.  A subset of research sites that host both inventory plots and eddy-covariance towers will be used to parameterize and validate ecosystem models to faithfully simulate forest C and water cycling of major forest types across the region.  Newly developed remote sensing tools, combined with MODIS/Landsat, will then be used to provide detailed distributions of the major forest types across the region, and will be used to directly link RS observations to tower-based fluxes.  Finally, we will develop geospatial modeling tools (e.g. GPP = f(forest type, climate, DEM, fire, drought, etc.), tested against tower-model fusion, to scale results and identify the main drivers and threats affecting forest ecosystem services in a spatially-explicit manner across the entire region.  

Scaling Up Biocrude Derived Anode Material (BDAM)

• PI: Park, Sunkyu
• Direct Sponsor Name: US Dept. of Energy (DOE) – Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE)
• Awarded Amount: $1,976,131 
• Abstract: We will improve and validate the critical unit operations needed for producing high-value carbon materials (graphite and hard carbon) used for lithium ion and sodium ion batteries from a faction of the biocrude produced by biomass fast pyrolysis. This work will bring together two innovations, 1) production of high-value carbon materials from the biocrude heavy residues fraction, which are often difficult to convert into biofuels, and 2) process innovations that should lower the costs for producing these high-value carbons. In order to produce high-value carbons, the biocrude residues are sequentially heated to remove volatiles and oxygen, polymerize the biomass carbons into graphene sheets, and in a second step form either highly crystalline graphite or disordered hard carbon. The graphite can be used in as drop-in anode material in existing commercial lithium ion battery (LIB) applications such as portable electronics and electric vehicles (EVs), while the hard carbon can be used in emerging and advancing battery applications, such as sodium ion battery (SIB) for grid electrochemical energy storage and LIB for hybrid batteries in EV with high capacity and good rate capability. The team has demonstrated that both graphite and hard carbon can be produced from pyrolysis biocrudes at laboratory scale and has measured their electrochemical performance in batteries. This work will optimize the range of operating parameters, with a focus on the complex interactions between the chemical changes and the heat and mass transfer characteristics of the reactor and increase the production scale to obtain mass and energy balances that are relevant for modeling commercial potential. The performance of the carbon materials will be evaluated to define their values in commercial systems. Both techno-economics (TEA) and life cycle analysis (LCA) will be performed to understand the economic and environmental impact of the proposed technology. Preliminary revenue analysis suggests diverting 15-25% of the biocrude, essentially all of the heavy and less valuable fraction, into high-value carbons like graphite or hard carbon can significantly improve the profits of a biorefinery and lower the cost of making biofuels. The goal of this project is to optimize and scale-up the process for producing graphite and hard carbon that meet the requirement for LIB and SIB, respectively. Performance specification will be measured, including electrochemical performance under varying conditions (e.g., operating voltage range, current density, and c-rate) using coin-type and pouch cells. We will use a suite of advanced analytical tools to develop a more detailed understanding of 1) how the chemical composition of biocrude and the carbonization process impact the macromolecular ordering of the final products and 2) how the changes in carbon structure influence on the ion storage behavior (e.g., (de)insertion and adsorption/desorption) and subsequent electrochemical performance. In addition to the performance of the carbon materials, we will determine yields in order to close the mass and energy balances of the process. This data will be used to conduct rigorous TEA and LCA models to demonstrate the target FOA metrics such as $3.00/GGE fuel selling price and 60% reduction in emission. Successful completion of the scale up of bio-based graphite and hard carbon production will enable commercialization of these processes and will have an important impact on several sustainable technologies, 1) the low cost biocrude, the bio-based graphite will reduce the cost for LIB that can be used in EVs, 2) the low cost of hard carbon production will enable SIB for energy grid storage and LIB for advanced batteries for EVs, supporting continued growth of PV and wind electricity generation, and 3) commercial production of graphite and hard carbon as biorefinery co-products will improve the overall economics of producing biofuels.   

Techno-Economic Analysis of KRICT Biorefinery Process

• PI: Park, Sunkyu
• Direct Sponsor Name: Korean Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT)
• Awarded Amount: $33,303 
• Abstract:   PI Park will conduct a techno-economic analysis of biorefinery process developed by KRICT.  This will involve (1) process model in simulation package, (2) detailed mass and energy balance, (3) discounted cash flow economic model, (4) minimum selling price calculation, and (5) sensitivity analysis.

North Carolina Local Government Action Toolkit for Harmful Algal Blooms

• PI: Seekamp, Erin
• Direct Sponsor Name: NC Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) APNEP
• Amount Awarded: $63,908 
• Abstract: We propose to develop a North Carolina Local Government Action Toolkit for Harmful Algal Blooms to empower local governments, health departments, and community-based organizations, such as riverkeepers, to communicate and respond effectively and in a timely manner to harmful algal bloom (HAB) events. HABs are of growing concern in North Carolina waterways, particularly cyanobacteria, named for their blue-green color. Under certain conditions, such as calm, sunny periods, cyanobacteria can proliferate profusely and form surface blooms or scums. While all algal blooms can have negative effects (e.g., loss of tourism due to avoidance of foul-smelling water), several cyanobacteria genera produce toxins which present a risk to public health. While the responsibility for informing and warning the public about potential public health risks associated with harmful algal blooms resides with public health departments, their ability to do so is hampered by the lack of available data and slow monitoring system, limit guidance or resources from state agencies due to limited budgets/staffing, and lack of clarity about what authority they actually have to implement certain management actions (e.g., public messaging, beach closures). Warning the public that there may be a potential harmful algal bloom when one is not present may erode trust, particularly among business owners and industries whose livelihoods are intrinsically tied to water (e.g., fishing, tourism, and business associated with water-based recreation). Yet not warning the public is also undesirable as people may continue to recreate, use, and interact with water that may contain dangerous toxins potentially harmful to health. The proposed project and resulting key deliverable – a local government action toolkit for harmful algal blooms – will provide needed guidance from state agencies for local health departments and local governments to develop a messaging and response plan for algal bloom season.

Characterizing Prescribed Fire Trends and Their Relationship With Forest Conditions Across the South

• PI: Vukomanovic, Jelena
• Direct Sponsor Name: US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service
• Awarded Amount: $50,000 
• Abstract: Prescribed fire is important for managing, conserving, and maintaining forests in the South. The South leads the nation in applying prescribed fire, and prescribed burning affects more acres in the South than all large wildfires across the conterminous U.S. Therefore, understanding the recent prescribed fire history of forests is important for assessing the current and potential future condition of the South forests. While the FIA database includes information on disturbance and management events, prescribed burns and other low severity fires are not recorded by FIA, and we lack other comprehensive, spatially consistent records of prescribed fire and its effects on forests across broad regions and multiple ownerships in the South. Yet, a number of relatively new remote sensing-derived products capture low-severity fires, and thus have potential to characterize recent prescribed fire trends across broad extents. This research aims to address the question: how well do new remote sensing-based products characterize recent trends in area of low-severity fires (most of which are prescribed fires) and their impacts to forest conditions in the South? Our proposed work will: (1) build spatially explicit fire history information for one or more regions of the Southern US, and (2) examine the relationship between those burn history metrics and metrics of forest condition. For objective (1) we will use a combination of remotely sensed/derived burned area products (for example, Landsat Burned Area (BA) Product, SE FireMap (derived from Landsat BA)), and forest disturbance information created by SRS EFETAC scientists, combined with information on known prescribed fire locations from National Forests for training and validation. For objective (2) we will extract a set of forest condition metrics from FIA (for example, species composition, tree density and abundance by basal area classes) to investigate the relationship between forest conditions and the derived metrics from (1) to assess impacts of low-severity (prescribed) fire (or lack thereof, in places where fire is needed) on forest conditions, as well as the differences in forest conditions before compared with after fires. The broader impacts of this work to the Southern Research Station and FIA include furthering our ability to characterize and understand the impacts of drivers, threats, and management on southern forest conditions, as the South’s forests are increasingly under threats and pressure from global change. The work has potential to contribute to assessments of disturbance in the South including the Resources Planning Act (RPA) assessment.