Thomas T. Veblen, a College of Arts and Sciences professor of distinction in the Geography Department, will deliver a Distinguished Research Lecture on Tuesday, April 25, at the University Memorial Center (UMC) with a reception to follow.
His lecture "Wildfire regime shifts in Patagonian-Andean forest ecosystems: Feedbacks and consequences in the face of climate and land-use changes" will explore the development and impacts of over 40 years of field-based research on the dynamics of the native forests of southern Chile and Argentina, including:
Who: Open to the public
What: "Wildfire regime shifts in Patagonian-Andean forest ecosystems: Feedbacks and consequences in the face of climate and land-use changes"
When: Tuesday, April 25, 4 to 5 p.m.
Where: UMC, Glen Miller Ballroom
Cost: Free
Registration is requested for this event. Reception to follow.
- Highlighting some of the outstanding accomplishments of CU graduates in environmental research and education in Chile and Argentina, reflecting CU Boulder’s successful contributions to international education;
- Describing how this research contributed prominently to the shift toward modern non-equilibrium frameworks of forest dynamics;
- Refining older views of these forests, revising understanding of the effects of natural disturbances and climate variability on forest structure, and guiding the development of appropriate forest management practices; and
- Describing how he developed the most extensive tree-ring fire history network in the Southern Hemisphere to understand how both people and climate variability have affected wildfire activity over the past four centuries.
The Distinguished Research Lectureship is among the highest honors bestowed by the faculty on a faculty member at the University of Colorado Boulder. Veblen is one of two recipients of the 2016 award.
Since joining CU in 1981, Veblen has graduated 33 PhDs. From 1975 to 1979, he was on the faculty of the Forestry School of Universidad Austral de Chile, and from 1979 to 1981 he was a research fellow at the Forest Research Institute in New Zealand.
His research focuses on disturbance ecology in the context of climate change and human impacts on temperate forest ecosystems in North America and South America. In the U.S. Rocky Mountains, his research uses tree-ring reconstructions to examine the long-term history of wildfire and bark beetle outbreaks in the context of changing climate.
He was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 1985, elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1991 and named a fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science in 2008.
He has long been engaged in extensive public outreach efforts to promote science-based decision-making in forest management policy and adaptation to climate change.
