Research interests

I am a multidisciplinary researcher & project manager with more than 15 years’ of international research, development, & capacity-building experience in the field of Forests, Livelihoods, & Restoration. I have significant expertise on the environmental, social, & economic dimensions of forestry, including its contributions to poverty reduction, food security & nutrition. I have in-depth experience working on a range of systems in the context of forest-farm mosaic landscapes, including natural & planted forests, smallholder & community forestry, agroforestry & trees on farms, to large-scale industrial tree plantations. I have lived and worked in multiple developing & developed countries, & have a wealth of experience planning & managing fieldwork to collect primary data at multiple levels (household to national), managing databases, & analyzing a range of social, economic, environmental, & institutional issues to inform policy, practice, & sustainable development processes.

Curriculum vitae

Teaching activities: Coordinator of the Thematic Module of Global Land Use as part of the multidisciplinary Master’s programme on Environmental Change & Global Sustainability (ECGS-800). Responsible tacher for the Master's course on ‘Tropical Forests & Climate Change’ (FOR-253) and the Bachelor’s course on ‘Tropical Forest Ecology & Conservation’ (ME-228); and co-coordinator of the Master’s field-course ‘Tropical Forests & Agroforests’ (FOR-248). I teach annually or bi-annually in four courses over the last five years; including the Bachelor’s course ‘Introduction to Tropical Forestry’ (ME-229), and three Master’s courses: ‘Tropical Silviculture & Forest Management’ (FOR-250), ‘Methods and Tools in Tropical Forestry’ (FOR-247), and ‘Field Course: Tropical Forests & Agroforests’ (FOR-248). In addition to coordinating and teaching university courses, I also provide intensive training courses to university staff in developing countries as part of capacity-building projects in forestry higher education in Laos, Thailand, Myanmar & Vietnam.

Academic and societal contributions: Expert member of the ECGS steering group (Master's Program in Environmental Change & Global Sustainability, University of Helsinki); Member of multi-institutional Scientific Advisory Group on ‘Developing national socioeconomic surveys in forestry’ led by the FAO (2014 - ongoing); Member of the Task Force on Monitoring for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, specifically in the sub task-force on socio-economic Indicators (2020-ongoing); Member of INBAR expert Task Force on Sustainable Bamboo Management (International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation)(2020); Member of IUFRO Small-scale Forestry Group (IUFRO 3.08) and the IUFRO ‘Sustainable planted forests for a greener future’ Task Force; Supervisor of 3 current PhD students (plus 2 completed), and 4 MSc students (plus 2 completed); Regular peer-reviewer for multiple forest & land use- related journals; External PhD thesis examiner for non-Finnish universities.

Studies and professional experience: Before completing my PhD in Forests and Livelihoods at the Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods (Charles Darwin University, Australia, 2015), I worked for seven years at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in Indonesia as a Researcher and Scientist. I have an MSc in Environmental Research from Charles Darwin University focused on bamboo forest management, and a Graduate Diploma in Science in Plant Biology/Botany from the University of Western Australia (UWA). I have more than 15 years’ of international research experience, and have worked on a broad range of research and higher education capacity building projects throughout the world. I currently have active projects in China, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, and Vietnam. Prior to my research career, I worked as a labourer in a range of agriculture, horticulture, forestry, aquaculture and livestock enterprises in Australia, the USA and Europe.

Fundraising: I have played a major role in raising over 4,000,000.00€ of competitive external funding for 6 new projects (research and capacity-building), with one major EU funded proposal for a project in Zambia in the pipeline.