LEMMA Team Detail

Emilie Henderson Former position: Research Ecologist Dept. of Forest Ecosystems and Society Oregon State University

Educational Background

BA (Biology) Williams College, 1996
MS (Forest Science) Oregon State University, 2000
PhD (Forestry) University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006

Research Interests

Disturbances such as human land-use can have persistent (and sometimes unintended) effects on forested ecosystems with respect to local plant community composition and soil properties, and also landscape-scale patterns in vegetation. Understanding the complex relationships between disturbance history, soil and plant communities at multiple scales is the common theme that has directed her research career to this date.

Biography

Emilie was a postdoctoral researcher with the LEMMA group from 2006 to 2009. She began her ecology career with an undergraduate honors project studying spring ephemeral wildflower communities as they relate to historic land-use in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. As a Master's student, she studied soil ecology (microarthropods grazing on fungi) in the context of prescribed fires in eastern Oregon's ponderosa pine forests. For her PhD, she integrated those interests studying the long-term effects of disturbances (farming, and fire) on plant communities, basic soil properties and landscape structure in the Northwest Sands of Wisconsin. Emilie's work with LEMMA focused on mapping Nature Serve's Ecological Systems classification across western Oregon using Random Forest models, and evaluating modeling tools and techiques for the Nationwide Forest Imputation Study (NaFIS). Outside of work, she spends her time visiting friends and family in and around Portland, dancing (mostly contra), hiking and playing Celtic music on her three harps.