University of Montana, W.A. Franke College of Forestry & Conservation · Montana · assistantship · posted today
I am recruiting a PhD student to work on a USDA-funded project aimed at helping land managers decide where, and whether, to replant forests after wildfire. Larger wildfires and warmer, drier conditions are increasing the need for post-fire tree planting across the western US while also making planting more likely to fail. Reforestation needs are already outpacing managers’ capacity to replant. Our team developed RegenMapper, a web-based decision support tool (used by the USFS) to identify where planting is needed after fire. With funding from USDA AFRI, we will improve on the existing decision support tool, build terrain-aware models of planting costs, and use multi-objective spatial optimization to prioritize planting within and across fires under current and future climates. The student will work alongside collaborators at the USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station. We are looking for a student interested in applied forest ecology, quantitative modeling, forest economics, and research that is used by managers. There is room to shape a dissertation around the student’s interests, for example modeling conifer regeneration from large post-fire survey and FIA datasets, validating predictions with targeted planting experiments, or quantifying the ecological and economic trade-offs of current vs. optimal planting decisions under a changing climate. Experience with R or Python, spatial data, economic and statistical modeling is a plus, as is curiosity about how forests recover after disturbance. The position is funded as a research assistantship including stipend, tuition waiver, and health insurance, with a start date in Fall of 2027. If you are interested, send me (solomon.dobrowski@umontana.edu) a single PDF with your CV, a one-page statement of research interests, and unofficial transcripts. Please use “PhD position” and your last name in the subject line. Before applying review my lab website to assess fit with our broader interests (https://solomonmt.github.io). I will begin reviewing applications on 11/16/26 and will continue until the position is filled. Finalists will have the chance to talk with current lab members and project collaborators. Thanks Solomon Solomon Dobrowski Professor, W.A. Franke College of Forestry & Conservation University of Montana https://solomonmt.github.io
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