Bio:
EDUCATION:
Ph.D. Natural Resource/Conservation, University of Tennessee (2017)
M.S. Business Analytics & Statistics, University of Tennessee (2017)
M.S. Forestry, Mississippi State University (2014)
M.S. Forest Economics, Shandong Agricultural University (2012)
B.S. Forestry, Shandong Agricultural University (2009)
TEACHING INTERESTS
Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resource Policy, Application of Statistics
RESEARCH INTERESTS:
My research focuses on addressing sustainability challenges in natural resource management
by examining the human dimensions, economics, and policy processes that shape management
and conservation decisions. I am particularly interested in understanding how private
and family forest landowners and other stakeholders respond to economic incentives,
policies, markets, environmental risks, and social factors, and how these responses
influence sustainable management outcomes. My research integrates theories and methods
from natural resource economics, human dimensions, and socio-ecological systems with
applied quantitative and qualitative approaches to study landowner behavior and management
adoption, forest certification and other market- and policy-based incentives, ecosystem
services valuation and carbon markets, forest and ecosystem restoration, climate-smart
forestry and resilience, invasive species and cooperative landscape-scale management,
forest biomass and carbon accounting, regional economic impacts of natural resource
sectors, and sustainable rural and community development.
CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
- Climate-resilient bottomland hardwood restoration: Evaluating the economic, environmental, and market benefits of restoring bottomland hardwood forests on working lands, collaborating with different stakeholders and agencies.
- Forest carbon quantification and markets: Quantifying carbon stored in restored hardwood forests and harvested wood products and examining the economic feasibility, market opportunities, and landowner participation associated with forest carbon programs.
- Bottomland hardwood growth, biomass, and carbon: Developing tree growth, height-diameter, volume, biomass, and carbon models for major southern oak species to improve estimates of timber production and carbon sequestration.
- Private forest landowner behavior and forest certification: Examining landowners' attitudes, motivations, barriers, and willingness to participate in forest certification and other sustainable forest management programs.
- Ecosystem restoration economics: Assessing the costs, benefits, and economic feasibility of hardwood and other forest restoration practices, including the value of timber, carbon, wildlife habitat, and other ecosystem services.
- Feral swine management and landowner cooperation: Investigating landowner knowledge, attitudes, management behavior, willingness to pay, and willingness to cooperate in landscape-scale efforts to control feral swine and reduce associated agricultural and natural resource damages.
- Natural hazards, forest risk, and landowner decision-making: Examining how natural disasters, risk perceptions, insurance, and economic conditions influence private landowners' forest management and risk-mitigation decisions.
- Life-cycle assessment of harvested wood products: Evaluating carbon storage, emissions, and life-cycle outcomes associated with harvested wood products as part of broader forest carbon accounting and climate-smart forest management.