WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Society of American Foresters (SAF) yearly acknowledges people for his or her excellent achievements and vital contributions to forestry and pure assets. This yr, Songlin Fei, director of Purdue College’s Institute for Digital Forestry and the Dean’s Chair in Distant Sensing within the Division of Forestry and Natural Resources, was chosen because the recipient for the SAF Award in Forest Science. This accolade acknowledges his distinctive analysis productiveness and high quality, his innovation and affect, in addition to his exemplary management expertise.
“Songlin Fei has a really excellent report of accomplishment in forest analysis that exemplifies the perfect that we search within the forestry and pure assets area. His sustained contributions to the forest sciences and to coaching the following era of scientists have made substantial advances within the area,” mentioned Bernie Engel, the Glenn W. Pattern Dean of Agriculture. SAF is devoted to advancing forest administration by means of science, training and know-how whereas selling skilled excellence and the well being and sustainable use of forests. With over 10,000 members, SAF unites forestry and pure assets consultants to share the newest trade developments.
Fei is famend for his experience in macrosystem invasion ecology, forest ecology, and geospatial instrument growth and software. His research has considerably superior the ecology and administration of invasive species, deepened the understanding of forest responses to local weather change, and propelled forestry into the digital age. Fei excels in conducting interdisciplinary analysis and making progressive discoveries that deal with utilized pure assets challenges.
“It’s nice to see that SAF appreciates the digital forestry analysis I’ve been engaged on,” mentioned Fei. “The award will not be solely a affirmation to my work, but additionally an encouragement for the interdisciplinary collaborations and improvements which might be wanted to deal with numerous world challenges our forests are dealing with.”
By way of his school place at Purdue, Fei goals to maximise the social, financial and ecological advantages of city and rural forests, recognizing that educating the following era of scholars is pivotal for world sustainability.
Collaborating with Purdue colleagues in forestry and pure assets, engineering, pc science, and pc and knowledge know-how, Fei and his colleagues developed the nation’s first digital forestry minor program, and they’re additionally making a digital forestry skilled grasp’s program to combine cutting-edge applied sciences into the workforce. Fei’s staff has digitally mapped the distribution and severity of invasive vegetation and pests in U.S. forests and superior AI-assisted tree stock utilizing distant sensing information, permitting for the speedy and correct mapping of enormous areas.
Fei’s analysis on forest resilience to local weather change has supplied worthwhile administration practices and threat evaluation for key stakeholders, together with landowners, foresters and authorities businesses. His contributions, which maintain vital ecological significance, have been widely known and printed in extremely regarded scientific publications corresponding to Nature, PNAS and SAF’s Journal of Forestry. Fei’s analysis was additionally acknowledged as one of many prime 100 scientific tales of 2017 by Discover Magazine, and in 2019, he obtained the W.S. Cooper Award from the Ecology Society of America for his work in forest ecology. In 2020, Fei was honored with the College of Agriculture’s Ag Research Award. He was lately elected as a fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
All through his profession, Fei has:
- Revealed over 150 peer-reviewed articles
- Secured greater than $54 million in analysis funding, most of which is from federal aggressive grants, together with from the National Science Foundation and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture
- Efficiently mentored 12 postdoctoral students and 21 graduate college students and at present serves as the key advisor for 3 postdoctoral students and 4 graduate college students
Wanting forward, Fei strives to understand large-scale ecological patterns, processes, and related ecosystem capabilities and companies by means of the event of complete instruments in modeling, geographic data methods and distant sensing.
“This award makes me extra dedicated to my interdisciplinary work. We are going to proceed to carry data-driven, AI-supported and socially accountable options for the sustainability and resilience of our forest ecosystems.”
About Purdue College
Purdue College is a public analysis establishment demonstrating excellence at scale. Ranked amongst prime 10 public universities and with two schools within the prime 4 in america, Purdue discovers and disseminates information with a top quality and at a scale second to none. Greater than 105,000 college students examine at Purdue throughout modalities and places, together with almost 50,000 in individual on the West Lafayette campus. Dedicated to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s fundamental campus has frozen tuition 13 years in a row. See how Purdue by no means stops within the persistent pursuit of the following big leap — together with its first complete city campus in Indianapolis, the Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. College of Enterprise, Purdue Computes and the One Well being initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives
Author/Media contact: Devyn Raver, draver@purdue.edu
Supply: Songlin Fei, sfei@purdue.edu
Agricultural Communications: 765-494-8415;
Maureen Manier, Division Head, mmanier@purdue.edu
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