Staff

My research is cross-disciplinary with the ultimate goal of scaling plot-based forest health relationships to a landscape-scale using remote sensing and GIS modeling. To date, this work has focused on the detection and mapping of pre-visual forest decline symptoms resulting from invasive species, global climate change and acid deposition/nutrient depletion. These techniques provide a much-needed tool for the early detection of new and existing stressors and will allow forest management agencies to focus management efforts before stands are severely impacted.

Jim Duncan serves as the director of the Forest Ecosystem Monitoring Cooperative, where he strives to improve access to information and monitoring of forested ecosystems in the northeast. He supports Cooperators by making long-term monitoring data on the region’s forested ecosystems more accessible, providing needed aggregation and syntheses of disparate data into products that are more useful for seeing and responding to change, and building new regional networks for greater collaboration in monitoring. He also supports interdisciplinary teams in UVM's Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources with spatiotemporal analysis and integration of social and ecological data, and serves on his towns tree board. He previously worked to increase transparency in the oil, gas and mining sectors by giving decision makers and citizens tools to map and interact with data, including in Mongolia and Ghana.

Starting as a part-time site coverage operator at FEMC’s air quality site in Underhill in the mid-1990s, Mim became the primary air quality technician in the early 2000s. As needs changed over the years, Mim edited the VMC newsletter, worked on communications and outreach, and various FEMC publications. Along with the rest of the FEMC staff, she has organized the Annual Conference, edited the Annual Monitoring Update and worked on our database and website. Mim retired in the spring of 2018, but remains on staff as a consultant and extra pair of hands for the air quality site. Outside of work, she enjoys gardening and hanging around with her ancient horse and other critters, and traveling to new places, especially cities.

Mike focuses on developing digital tools that can be used to manage and visualize data gathered by our cooperators, also serving as the main field technician for the FEMC's remote meteorlogical stations and is the primary site operator at the air quality site in Underhill, VT. Graduating from the University of Vermont with a B.S. in computer science and working as a field technician for years, Mike has developed an understanding of data requirements and idiosyncrasies. Outside of work Mike loves biking, climbing, skiing, and playing music.

John started his work with FEMC as a summer field intern in 2016 after graduating from the University of Vermont. Following the field season, he transitioned from an intern to the Project and Field Coordinator. When he’s not working on field projects John can be found at our Spear St. office crunching data, working on outreach, and other miscellaneous tasks. Outside of work John enjoys volleyball, photography, fishing on his kayak, and drumming.

Ali is a forest ecologist and dendrochronologist (tree rings) who specializes in understanding tree response to environmental change. She has worked with FEMC over the years, first as a graduate student studying tree growth in the FEMCs long-term study site at Mt. Mansfield and as a part-time staff member to author the annual reports. Now at the FEMC, she will coordinate FEMC projects across the region.