Current Lab Members
Lab Leader
Dr. Charles Nock
Dr. Nock is an assistant professor of ecosystem-based forest management in the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta. Charles's research interests are in forest ecology, global change, and the sustainable management of forests. Never one to shy away from adventure, Charles has spent time in Ontario, Austria, Quebec, and Germany in pursuit of knowledge of forest ecosystems. In 2018, he founded the Ecosystem-based Forest Management (EBM) lab. Charles holds an NSERC Industrial Research Chair that focuses on developing new knowledge and applications of EBM to forest ecosystems in Alberta.
Postdoctoral Fellows
Dr. Linhao Wu
Linhao is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Nock's lab. He completed his PhD in conservation biology at the University of Alberta in 2018 and then worked as a private contractor for Natural Resources Canada from 2018 to 2022. His research interest is forest ecology and he has identification skills for carabid and staphylinid beetles. His current research focuses on carbon, biodiversity, and multifunctionality of forest ecosystems.
Dr. Nasim Kheirkhah Ghehi
Nasim is a postdoctoral fellow working on Stand-type shifts in western boreal forests following wildfires. With an academic background in environmental science, she earned her PhD in Environmental Planning and her Master's in Environmental Management from the University of Tehran, Iran. Her PhD research focused on ecological resilience and landscape ecology, using ecological modeling and ArcGIS. With more than 12 years of experience with diverse environmental companies in Iran, Nasim is excited to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical applications in the Canadian context.
Dr. Richard Osei
Dr. Richard Osei is a postdoctoral fellow in the Ecosystem-Based Forest Management (EBM) lab at the Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta. His previous research at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) investigated tree diversity effects on carbon storage in temperate forests across Europe. His research in the EBM lab focuses on the comparison of forest structure and ecosystem functions in post-harvest and post-fire island remnants in the boreal forests of Alberta. He has research interests in forest ecosystem ecology, biodiversity-ecosystem function relationships, and agroecology.
Graduate Students
Caroline Whitehouse
Caroline’s PhD research focuses on how functional diversity could support forest resilience, with an emphasis on the boreal forest – a relatively low-diversity ecosystem highly vulnerable to climate change. Her MSc explored the reproductive biology of a cone-feeding insect pest in conifer seed orchards. She is a forest entomologist with Alberta Forestry and Parks, contributing to a provincial forest health program addressing forest insects and diseases, and climate change. Caroline’s PhD work aims to guide operational and policy changes for sustainable forest management and resilient forests in the context of climate change.
Jéssica Chaves Cardoso
Jéssica is a PhD candidate working on the NSERC IRC Ecosystem-Based Forest Management research program. She is exploring boreal forest resilience to climate change, with a specific focus on the growth resilience of aspen-spruce mixtures and pure stands to drought. She holds an MSc in Natural Resources and Environmental Studies (Forestry), and a BSc in Forest Engineering. Her experience ranges from working with tropical forests in Brazil to boreal forests in Canada.
Rim Maamouri
Rim is a Tunisian MSc student working on terrestrial laser scanning for understanding tree allometric variation and aboveground carbon storage in the boreal forest. She has a Bachelor's degree in forest engineering from the National Forestry School in Morocco and a postgraduate diploma in Sustainable Water Management from CIHEAM, Zaragoza-Spain. Rim is deeply passionate about understanding the effects of climate change on the boreal forest's carbon storage.
Alex Britz
Alex, originally from Washington state, graduated from the University of Alaska Anchorage with a BSc in Environmental Science. Currently, she is an MSc student deeply interested in the dynamics of wildfires and ecosystem renewal. Her thesis research focuses on studying the regeneration of burnt stands in the subalpine environments of both New Mexico and Alberta.
Jonathan Tales
Jonathan is an MSc candidate working on IRC Ecosystem-Based Forest Management research program. His project is a comparison of the functional and species diversity of vascular understory vegetation in fire skips and harvest retention islands. Prior to coming to the U of A, Jonathan earned a BSc in Biology from the University of Massachusetts and spent four field seasons working as a botany technician for US Forest Service.
Marin Harnett
Marin Harnett is an MSc student studying Forest Biology and Management at the University of Alberta. Her research will explore sheep grazing as a tool for vegetation management in boreal conifer plantations and the potential impact of grazing on fire behavior. Before joining the Ecosystem-based Management Lab, she graduated from North Carolina State University with a BSc in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management and a minor in Forest Management. She has also worked as a forest research technician in Maine and as a naturalist in Colorado.
Neha Nazar
Neha is an MSc candidate supported by the NSERC IRC in ecosystem-based forest management. She graduated in 2022 from Kerala Agricultural University, India with a BSc (Hons) Forestry. She holds a deep passion for forest ecology and is enthusiastic about researching how harvesting practices can emulate natural disturbances to promote forest resilience within the context of ecosystem-based forest management. She joined the lab in May 2023 and her ongoing research is a comparison study of tree mortality and coarse woody debris characteristics in post-fire and post-harvest island remnants.
Samantha Fitzgerald
Samantha is working towards a Dual Masters Degree in Forestry and Land Management at the University of Alberta through the TRANSFOR-M Program. She completed the first year of the program at the University of Padua, Italy. Her research will investigate growth responses of Populus tremuloides and Populus balsamifera to drought using previously collected dendrometer data.
Staff
Allison Roth
Allison completed their BSc double majoring in Biological and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Alberta in 2017. During this time, they were involved with the Aiken-Mackenzie research group at the Centre for Prions and Protein folding diseases and the Lewis Mathematical Biology research group. Following their undergraduate studies, Allison worked as a seasonal Chronic Wasting Disease technician with the Government of Alberta for four years. In the summer of 2019, Allison started their work in forestry as a dendrochronology research technician for Ellen Macdonald and Colin Bergeron. Allison joined Charles Nock’s EBM lab as a dendrochronology technician in December 2021 and currently fills the role of Lab and Field Coordinator for the research group.
Nina Vujakovic
Nina is working towards a BSc in Environmental and Conservation Sciences at the University of Alberta. She joined the Nock lab in May 2023 as a field assistant and is currently helping with various lab projects.