Associate Researchers
Craig Nitschke
Adjunct Researcher
Craig’s main research area is forest ecosystem response and vulnerability to climate change. Craig was born in Canada and he obtained his BSF (Hons) in forest resources management and Ph.D. in forest vulnerability and sustainable forest management under climate change and at the University of British Columbia. Craig is currently involved in several research projects that relate to assessing the vulnerability of local species and ecosystems to climate change. Over the past 3 years, Craig… Read more about Craig Nitschke
Rasmus Astrup
Adjunct Researcher
Rasmus Astrup was the Senior Scientist with the Bulkley Valley Research Centre. His main research area was stand dynamics and growth predictions for complex mixed-species stands. Rasmus was born in Denmark and he obtained his BSF at the Royal Agricultural and Veterinarian University in Copenhagen. He obtained his Ph.D. in quantitative silviculture and growth modeling at the University of British Columbia. Rasmus is currently involved in several research projects that relate to topics such as… Read more about Rasmus Astrup
Alana Clason
Adjunct Researcher
Alana graduated from the forest science program at UBC in 2007, during which time she worked in Smithers as a field assistant. Determined to return to the Bulkley Valley, she connected with the BVRC to pursue a masters here in Smithers through the University of Alberta, supervised by Ellen Macdonald and Sybille Haeussler. She completed her MSc in 2010 on overstory-understory dynamics and forest change in… Read more about Alana Clason
Hilary Thorpe
Adjunct Researcher
Hilary recently graduated from the University of Toronto with a PhD in forest ecology. She was hired by the BVRC to complete a project on crown shyness and is currently employed as a postdoctoral fellow in the Departments of Geography and Forest Sciences at the University of British Columbia. Hilary’s research interests include disturbance ecology, stand dynamics, dendroecology, individual-based modeling, and ecosystem-based forest management. In her dissertation, she used dendroecological techniques and neighbourhood models to… Read more about Hilary Thorpe
Jeff Anderson
Climate Change & Geosciences Researcher
Jeff’s main research area is ecosystem response to climate variability. He uses instrument records and paleo-climatology to describe the atmospheric component of observed ecosystem behavior. Jeff received a B.Sc. from the University of Victoria, focusing on both geosciences and terrestrial ecology. He then received a M.Sc. in geosciences from the University of Victoria, where he was part of a team exploring the vulnerability, of coastlines in Haida Gwaii, to current climate change models. Over the… Read more about Jeff Anderson
Erica Lilles
Soil & Vegetation Scientist
Erica first worked in the field of forest science during her undergraduate years at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, where she was an intern in the forest dynamics lab. She gained more experience in temperate and boreal forest ecology during field jobs in Washington, Alaska, and interior British Columbia. It was her interest in soil-plant interactions and native plant restoration that led her back to school for an M.Sc. degree in Land Reclamation at the University… Read more about Erica Lilles