Mark Ducey is professor of forest biometrics and management at the University of New Hampshire. As a Carsey Institute fellow, he has been collaborating with the Community and Environment in Rural America (CERA) research group to address the coupled challenges of sustaining rural communities and their ecological support systems. As part of that effort, he has been examining the history of forests and the forest industry within several focal communities. A goal is to understand how broad changes in forest composition and productivity reflect changing community economics and what opportunities forests provide for rural communities facing rapid social and ecological change. He has also been working on new interdisciplinary education models to help train the next generation of scholars and practitioners who will help meet these challenges head-on.

Mark has served on the faculty at UNH since 1998. Most of his research has focused on quantitative approaches to understanding forest development from individual trees up to regional scales. Projects funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, NASA, USDA, and the U.S. Forest Service have explored the contribution of forests to global and regional carbon cycles and to local ecosystem services, techniques to maintain wildlife habitat values in managed forests, the reintroduction of managed fire to northeastern U.S. forests, and sustainable forest management. His research has ranged from Scandinavia and northern Canada to New Zealand and Brazil but has always included a strong component in the northern forests of New England. Before coming to UNH, he taught and conducted research at North Carolina State University, Duke University, and Yale University. He holds a doctorate degree in forestry, a Master’s of Forest Science, and a bachelor’s degree in classical civilization, all from Yale.

Read about Mark's research, education, and selected publications.