From our Director:
Welcome to a special issue of the ARC Training Centre for Forest Value Newsletter.
This edition coincides with the submission of the Centre’s final report to the Australian Research Council (ARC) and in collating the report, provided a wonderful time for reflection on the achievements on the Centre over six years. Of course, this also provided an opportunity to consider whether the objectives of the ARC Linkage Program Industrial Transformation Training Centre were met. The objectives of the scheme at the time of funding were:
- to foster opportunities for Higher Degree by Research candidates and postdoctoral fellows to pursue industrial training and to enhance competitive research in collaboration between universities and organisations outside the Australian higher education sector, and
- to strengthen Australia’s industrial transformation priorities to supplement the capabilities of industries and other research end-users.
During the life of the Centre, the Centre funded 11 core PhD candidates and an additional 15 candidates and 4 postdoctoral fellows. Together with their industry partners and affiliated research teams, the candidates and fellows interacted closely with industry partners (over 700 meetings and engagements) to produce innovative outcomes on forest production and certification, products and manufacturing, supply chain integration and information management and forestry socio-economics. Centre researchers produced over 160 peer reviewed articles and leveraged an additional $10.6m in funding – some of which is continuing the Centre after this first 6-year term.
There are few examples in Australia where effective cross-disciplinary collaboration occurs along the forest products value chain - from forest establishment to manufacturers - and a strength of this Centre was the co-location at UTAS of chief investigators working across all points in the value chain and their capacity to engage the broader industry through industry partnerships, nationally. The Centre established a strong collaborative approach to research and training, including an inclusive scoping phase, co-location of staff and shared supervision of staff and PhD students across industry and academia.
Perhaps the best illustration of the benefits of the ARC Training Centre are the sentiments from our industry partners and the stories from our graduates. All partners said they would participate in the scheme again and the below quotes borrowed from three partners illustrate the benefits form their perspectives:
“We worked closely with three PhD students on projects that enabled the business to explore avenues of research that helped further the business’s understanding and opportunities. It also enabled the students to work within our business giving them access to our corporate systems, forestry staff and business operations which ultimately led to one of the students being employed by the organisation.”
“Working with the Centre has enabled development of ideas that would not have occurred without the support of the Centre.”
“Integration of science into identifying and understanding on-ground problems relevant to the success of our business, and developing practical solutions that could be delivered both for our business and also the restoration sector more broadly".
I thank our industry partners and supervisory teams for the collaborative approach to this Centre and their support of the research and research training for the students and postdoctoral fellows. From here, the Centre for Forest Value continues to deliver innovative research with new non-ARC funding.
I wish you all well at the end of another year and would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a safe and restful Christmas and New Year break. Below I share with you this special issue of the Centre newsletter highlighting our graduates, their PhD journey, and where they are now. I look forward to bringing you more news in the New Year.
Professor Julianne O’Reilly-Wapstra, Director ARC Training Centre for Forest Value
Keep up-to-date with Centre outputs and news via our website and follow us on Twitter.
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CFV Graduates across Australia and New Zealand
In this section we catch up with CFV graduates around Australia and New Zealand to find out where their PhD journey has led them.
mY TIME IN TASMANIA AT THE CFV WAS JUST BRILLIANT. I HAD EXPOSURE TO LEARNING AND DEVELOPED A SET OF SKILLS THAT I DID NOT EVEN KNOW EXISTED BEFORE.
Dr Michelle Balasso, Forest Digital Twin Program Manager, OneFortyOne, working on a cutting-edge program to bring forestry to the next stage of innovation.
Dr Michelle Balasso
For recent CFV graduate and now Forest Digital Twin Program Manager at OneFortyOne, Dr Michelle Balasso, it was the combination of research training and the industry partnership that kept her feet on the ground while studying and facilitated a real-world mindset during her PhD project.
‘My time in Tasmania at the CFV was just brilliant. I had exposure to learning and developed a set of skills that I did not even know existed before.’
However, study wasn’t her first introduction to forestry. For Michelle, forestry was in the genes.
I was actually born into forestry. I come from the Small Dolomites mountain range, in Northern Italy, where closeness to nature and its products is more of a lifestyle than a choice. Forest growing, management, harvesting, and timber production down to carpentry are all areas that touched me personally first, and professionally, later.
During her study, Michelle’s PhD project examined the assessment of wood quality in standing trees, and segregation of harvested wood for different end-product use to extract the maximum value from the hardwood resource.
'My project spanned the supply chain, from the forest down to timber products for construction,' Michelle said.
'I tried to connect the parts of the productive chain across very different stakeholders because a lot of knowledge is stuck in silos; forest growers know a lot about the forests and their resource, but they don’t necessarily understand what the log processors want from their logs; similarly, log processors don’t necessarily understand what designers or architects require, or what products the planted resource could potentially deliver.'
The project collaborated with several industry partners including Forico and Sustainable Timber Tasmania, as well as Tasmanian processors including Neville-Smith Forest Products and Torenius Timber. Additionally, working with industry provided the opportunity to brush shoulders with other partners by working on side projects and helping other PhD students.
‘It was through the amazing collaboration I had with my primary industry partner Forico that I was exposed to many research projects and where I learned from their FibreTech lab, from their knowledgeable staff who exposed me to forest management, data maintenance, harvesting practices, etc.’
‘All of that allowed me to write my research publications with an eye on how my results could actually be used as insights for the industry and be practically implemented by companies operating in plantation forestry.’
Employed by Forico at the conclusion of her study, Michelle is now managing the Forest Digital Twin program at OneFortyOne.
‘This is a cutting-edge program to bring forestry to the next stage of innovation, integrating advanced sensor technology, analytics, and visualisation tools to create a digital interactive representation of the forest estate. It’s one of the first of its kind in Australia‘, said Michelle.
Looking back on her PhD Michelle notes that;
‘I had enough exposure to both the industry and the academia (nationally and internationally) to make my PhD research relevant, gaining back a great and very positive response both from the scientific community and the industry.’
And fresh off the press, Michelle is thrilled about being the lead author of a chapter in a new book The bioeconomy and non-timber forest products - 1st Edition - Carsten (routledge.com) which will be available soon. Michelle is also excited to share her two latest publications.
- Balasso, M, Hunt, M, Jacobs, A, O'Reilly-Wapstra, J (2021) Characterisation of wood quality of Eucalyptus nitens plantations and predictive models of density and stiffness with site and tree characteristics. Forest Ecology and Management 49 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2021.118992.
- Balasso, M, Hunt, M, Jacobs, A, O'Reilly-Wapstra, J (2022) Development of a segregation method to sort fast-grown Eucalyptus nitens (H. Deane & Maiden) Maiden plantation trees and logs for higher quality structural timber products. Annals of Forest Science 79, 9 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13595-022-01122-2
Selected quotes used with permission from Forico.
Snapshot: in his own words
Dr Travis Britton, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, WSU, Sydney
I started a postdoc at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment (Western Sydney Uni), as part of the Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture. My research is exploring adaption to water and temperature stress in Eucalyptus.
I am also going to the University of California Santa Barbara as a Fulbright postdoc for six months next year (from April 2023 to October 2023), to work with Anna Trugman exploring drivers of drought-induced tree mortality.
Dr Nicolò Camarretta
These days CFV graduate Nicolò Camarretta (Nick) can be found at Scion in New Zealand where he works as a Remote Sensing Scientist. In this role, among many other projects, Nick continues the work he began during his PhD studies.
Prior to starting his PhD Nick completed his Master of Forestry at the University of Florence and worked as a Research Fellow at the Forest Geomatics Lab Arezzo, however an interest in ecosystem restoration sparked a move to Australia.
‘I am a forester by training. During my undergraduate education I was not exposed to the idea of ecosystem restoration, as we were taught that forests were planted for several reasons (wood production, soil erosion control and rainfall regimentation), but biodiversity conservation and recovery was outside our program.’
Nick's PhD studies focused on the application of innovative remote sensing technologies in the fields of forest restoration and forest genetics and was based in the Tasmanian Midlands, one of Australia’s 15 biodiversity hotspot regions.
Nick’s primary project partner was Greening Australia.
‘When I first moved to Tassie to start my PhD program I had little to no experience in forest restoration principles and practices. These shortcomings were quickly filled by spending a good amount of time at Greening Australia’s premises, getting to know the theory behind their work and the best practices they had developed over several years of activity.’
The outcome of Nick’s study was knowledge that was transferable into plantation forestry and particularly into precision forestry.
Nick reflects on an additional aspect of his training during his PhD;
'The benefit of working within the CFV was that it allowed me to disseminate my research in many national and international conferences and present my work to a wide variety of audiences.'
‘Individual tree phenotyping through remote sensing technology is currently a subject of high interest to the forestry community, and my work in that area has certainly helped with my employability.’
Nick has enjoyed the positive reception his PhD research has received.
‘I am pleased to say that I had mainly positive responses to my PhD research, being highlighted by the number of citations of individual papers that came out of the thesis, or by the strong interest that I have received in regard to the topics covered.’
At the completion of his PhD Nick moved to Göttingen, Germany, to start a two-year postdoctoral position that was part of an international project with the Collaborative Research Center 990. Within this project, Nick’s focus was to provide remote sensing support for scaling up ecological and socio-economic functions from plot to landscape and regional level.
Nick took up his current role in Scion in June 2022.
A list of Nick’s recent publications is below:
- Camarretta, N., Harrison, P. A., Bailey, T., Potts, B., Lucieer, A., Davidson, N., & Hunt, M. (2020). Monitoring forest structure to guide adaptive management of forest restoration: a review of remote sensing approaches. New Forests, 51(4), 573–596. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-019-09754-5
- Camarretta, N., A. Harrison, P., Lucieer, A., M. Potts, B., Davidson, N., & Hunt, M. (2020). From Drones to Phenotype: Using UAV-LiDAR to Detect Species and Provenance Variation in Tree Productivity and Structure. Remote Sensing, 12(19), 3184. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12193184
- Camarretta, N., Harrison, P. A., Lucieer, A., Potts, B. M., Davidson, N., & Hunt, M. (2021). Handheld Laser Scanning Detects Spatiotemporal Differences in the Development of Structural Traits among Species in Restoration Plantings. Remote Sensing, 13(9), 1706. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13091706
- Camarretta, N., Ehbrecht, M., Seidel, D., Wenzel, A., Zuhdi, M., Merk, M. S., Schlund, M., Erasmi, S., & Knohl, A. (2021). Using Airborne Laser Scanning to Characterize Land-Use Systems in a Tropical Landscape Based on Vegetation Structural Metrics. Remote Sensing, 13(23), 4794. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13234794
- Harrison, P. A., Camarretta, N., Krisanski, S., Bailey, T. G., Davidson, N. J., Bain, G., Hamer, R., Gardiner, R., Proft, K., Taskhiri, M. S., Turner, P., Turner, D., & Lucieer, A. (2021). From communities to individuals: Using remote sensing to inform and monitor woodland restoration. Ecological Management & Restoration, 22(S2), 127–139. https://doi.org/10.1111/emr.12505
Snapshot: in his own words
Dr Vilius Gendvilas, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, USC, Sunshine Coast, Australia
I'm currently a Postdoc Research Fellow at the University of the Sunshine Coast’s Forest Research Institute.
My research is focused on how to further improve non-destructive wood testing techniques such as drilling resistance (Resi) to predict wood properties of Australian grown commercial tree species. Also, I am working very closely with the forest industry (forest growers and processors) across Australia.
My project is very closely linked to what I did during my PhD project, so I am very grateful to the ARC Training Centre for Forest Value providing me with useful skills for my current job.
Sean Krisanski
An interest in engineering and technology combined with a love of spending time in forests led CVF graduate, Sean Krisanski, to undertake a PhD in the CFV, resulting in the development of a Forest Structural Complexity Tool (FSCT) and his current role working with Emesent, a company specialising in drone autonomy, LiDAR mapping, and data analytics.
Sean’s PhD project used drones to make canopy leaf sampling accessible by greatly reducing the cost, time, and risk required. This is important as the measurement of forests is a critical aspect of managing forests sustainably, however current methods can be time-consuming and complex.
Industry and Government project partners provided key support; Interpine, PF Olsen, Forest Products Commission, Sustainable Timber Tasmania, and the NSW Department of Primary Industries.
This support enabled Sean to develop his project outcomes directly within the industries working within current tool parameters.
‘Collaborating with industry allowed me to access field sites and learn about the challenges faced by the forest industry, as well as access large and high-quality datasets, which were incredibly valuable for my research.’
The engagement with two partners played a particularly important role in the direction of Sean’s project.
‘I greatly appreciate the collaborations with Interpine and PF Olsen, who provided access to valuable datasets and their experience, which helped me greatly in developing the Forest Structural Complexity Tool.’
Reflecting on the outcome of his PhD project, Sean comments that,
‘The responses have been surprisingly positive, particularly to the Forest Structural Complexity Tool I created as part of the PhD. It’s been very satisfying to see it getting used by a few companies and researchers around the world.’
Emesent, where Sean now works, makes a lidar scanner and robot autonomy system called Hovermap, a tool Sean came across during his PhD,
‘During my PhD (thanks to my collaborators), I was able to access some forest point clouds captured using a Hovermap and was very impressed at how powerful the tool was for forest monitoring.
In his current role on the autonomy team, Sean works with challenges associated with autonomous under-canopy flight in forests, among other challenging environments.
Sean is pleased to share what he considers the most impactful resulting publication, which describes the Forest Structural Complexity Tool:
- Krisanski S, Taskhiri MS, Gonzalez Aracil S, Herries D, Muneri A, Gurung MB, Montgomery J, Turner P. Forest Structural Complexity Tool—An Open Source, Fully-Automated Tool for Measuring Forest Point Clouds. Remote Sensing. 2021; 13(22):4677. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13224677
As a hobby, Sean continues to maintain and improve the software for the FSCT, which can be found here: https://github.com/SKrisanski/FSCT
Snapshot: in her own words
Dr Zara Marais, Sustainable Landscapes Team, Goulburn-Broken CMA, Yea, Victoria
I am currently delivering biodiversity conservation and restoration projects as part of the Sustainable Landscapes team at the Goulburn-Broken Catchment Management Authority, in central Victoria.
Outside of work, I am in the early stages of building a community native plant nursery which will focus on improving local access to plants for restoration, and raising awareness of threatened local flora.
CFV Graduates around the Globe.
Where are they now?
From postdoctoral positions, research projects, and a consulting company, Rose Brinkhoff, Mohammad Derikvand, Kent Davis and Manuel Rocha share where their PhD journey has led them in their own words.
SNAPSHOT: IN HER OWN WORDS
Dr Rose Brinkhoff, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Michigan, USA
In June I moved to the US to start a postdoc with the Institute for Global Change Biology at the University of Michigan.
I'm researching the responses of montane plant communities to climate warming and changes in species composition, as part of the Warming and Removal in Mountains (WaRM) network.
SNAPSHOT: IN His OWN WORDS
Dr Mohammad Derikvand, Postdoctoral Researcher, Aalto University, Finland
Upon completion of my PhD at the University of Tasmania, I started working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Civil Engineering, Aalto University, Finland.
I do research in a wide range of topics related to fabrication, end-use, and reuse of engineered wood products. My passion for wood has always motivated me to promote its use in people’s life by discovering and developing new areas/applications in which wood can become a substitute for other less ecofriendly materials.
One of my current research projects is focused on developing mass laminated timber products using connectors and lamellae made with salvaged timber materials. The aim is to design products “from circularity, for circularity” by reducing the need for raw solid timber, metallic fasteners, and synthetic adhesives.
Another one of my projects is aimed to promote design for disassembly in timber structures by developing deconstructable connection systems. The overarching aim is to contribute to the circular economy by enabling the possibility of reuse of timber materials at the end of building’s life and to encourage the sustainable and responsible use of natural resources in the built environment.
SNAPSHOT: IN HIS OWN WORDS
Dr Kent Davis, Contractor, Researcher & Administrator, Western Oregon, USA
Since completing my PhD I have formed Cambium R&D LLC. and have started contracting with Oregon State University on small research projects that include designing and building apparatuses for image collection during various types of wood product tests and a variety of field projects.
I have published two papers on the performance of different wood coatings and I’m currently working on a third from the project. I am also an administrator for the Oregon Forest Industry Director.
I also prepare and submit land subdivision reviews that include sanitation, water supplies, sewage disposal, solid waste, and storm drainage systems to the State of Montana.
In my off time, I have continued with my custom woodworking endeavours at daviswoodworks.com.
Right: photo of Kent and family while studying in Tasmania
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The ARC Training Centre for Forest Value (CFV) works collaboratively with stakeholders to conduct research of excellence to solve forestry, agroforestry, and forest restoration and conservation challenges.
The CFV is funded through granting schemes, industry, environmental and community stakeholders.