Research

I have a multidisciplinary background in the ecological (plant biology/ ecology, wildlife management), agri-/aquaculture, forestry, and social sciences. My research interests integrate ecological and social sciences to study coupled human and natural systems; with specific focus on the human dimensions of Global Forests and Land Use change (socioeconomics, livelihoods, rural development). My work covers a range of socio-environmental systems including natural and planted forests, smallholder and community forestry, agroforestry and trees on farms, large-scale tree plantations; and topics including livelihoods, climate change resilience and adaptation, food security, re/afforestation and forest restoration, conservation and development. Most of my research involves rigorous fieldwork-based primary data collection in developing countries at multiple levels (household to national), but I also have significant expertise in desktop studies such as systematic reviews. My aim is to use high-quality analyses to ground global forestry issues with local case-study evidence in order to provide new knowledge that can inform policy, practice, and sustainable development processes.

Teaching

I have experience teaching in a range of settings, from classroom-based university lectures at all levels; to intensive field-methods courses in the forests and villages of rural Laos; to intensively training government and university staff, postgraduate students, and consultants in multiple countries to collect high-quality field-data; to university staff training courses as part of capacity-building projects in the Mekong. I first began lecturing, however, in January 2016 when I started my postdoctoral position with the Viikki Tropical Resources Institute (VITRI) at the University of Helsinki. I immediately began contributing research-based teaching in a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses based on my research conducted at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and my postgraduate research in China and Australia.

At the University of Helsinki I have been a regular contributing lecturer and field-course teacher in the following five courses since 2016:

i) FOR-012: Helsinki Summer School; ‘Managing Sustainable Forest Landscapes’. Postgraduate-level course

ii) FOR-247 (previously TROP210): Methods and Tools in Tropical Forestry. This graduate course is held once every two years, and is a classroom-based preparatory course preceding the field-course (FOR-248)

iii) FOR-248 (previously TROP220): Field-course: Tropical Forests and Agroforests. Held once every two years. This three-week practical course held in the villages and forests of rural Laos in partnership with local universities. I am one of five teachers, responsible for the ‘Forests & Livelihoods’ theme, which involves teaching students how to conduct village focus group discussions and household surveys to collect primary data in a real world situation, as well as how to analyse the data and present the results.

iv) FOR-250: Tropical Silviculture and Forest Management. Held every second year for second year Bachelors students.

v)ME-229 (previously TROP170): Introduction to Tropical Forestry. First year Bachelors students

Teaching experience in the Global South:

-  In December 2019 I taught in our Forestry Higher Education Advancement in Laos project (FORHEAL) training course on ‘Sustainable Management & Marketing of NTFPs’ that was led by our project partners from The University of Freiburg (Germany) in cooperation with Souphanouvong University (Laos). The ‘students’ were 15 academic staff from three Lao universities.

- I have twice been the teacher (2017, 2019) leading the ‘Forests & Livelihoods’ theme on the three-week intensive field-methods training courses in Laos (FOR-248 Field-course), with mostly postgraduate  students from the University of Helsinki, as well as university staff from Thailand, Myanmar and Laos.

- In 2018 I was the lead organizer and main teacher for a 7-day practical course on ‘Measuring the contribution of forest & environmental income in rural livelihoods’ as part of our Partnership for Forestry Higher Education cooperation in Mekong Region project (PARFORM). The ‘students’ were 16 staff members from our three partner universities in Laos.

- For my PhD (in China) and for many other fieldwork-based research projects over the years (Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia), I have intensively trained ~30 local people (government forestry officers and research staff, university staff, postgraduate students, consultants) how to collect high-quality data by conducting village Focus Group Discussions, household surveys, participatory mapping, and other methods.