2022 | Melissa Kreye and Calvin Norman

Research Lead

Melissa Kreye, Assistant Professor of Forest Resource Management

Extension Lead

Calvin Norman, Assistant Teaching Professor of Forestry 

This integrated team is working to provide landowners with education in climate-smart forestry to help them participate more knowledgeably in payments and technical assistance programs, thus helping to boost the development of new viable markets and expand the forest economy. Their efforts in research and extension are helping private forest owners to become a robust part of climate change adaptation and mitigation solutions.

As their nomination letter points out, “Melissa and Calvin are an excellent model of Specialist-Educator collaboration. They work together to fill each other’s knowledge gaps. Melissa is an economist and social scientist who has experience with understanding ecosystem services markets, their structure, and the people that operate them. Whereas Calvin is a forester with experience interacting with small private landowners, forest management, and forest products.”

Melissa and Calvin are the first and only team working at the national level with non-industrial landowners and private lands stakeholders. They have forged relationships within the university and well beyond to connect with researchers at other universities, the US Forest Service, market makers, and landowners.

They are currently leading an initiative that includes 12 land-grant universities and two USDA Climate Hubs. Last year they were awarded a $1.5 million USDA NIFA AFRI grant to support education of landowners, extension educators, and other stakeholders in subjects related to forest carbon, carbon markets, and the carbon economy across the Midwest, Southeast, and Northeast.