Forestry professor to offer SFA Regents Lecture

Dr. Brian P. Oswald

NACOGDOCHES, Texas - The upcoming Stephen F. Austin State University Regents Lecture by Dr. Brian P. Oswald, the Joe E. Denman Distinguished Professor of Forestry in the Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture, will focus on the growing wildfire problem in The Netherlands.

Oswald, who holds the Regents Professor designation from SFA in 2012-13, will deliver this year's address at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25, in Regents Suites A and B of the Baker Pattillo Student Center on the SFA campus. Refreshments will be served, and there is no admission charge.

Oswald said the lecture will address how SFA is helping fire agencies in The Netherlands with wildland fire management.

"The Netherlands and most of Northwest Europe are experiencing increases in the number and size of wildland fires," Oswald said. "This is occurring without the historical and social connection to wildland fire that exists in North America, and with almost no national expertise in wildland fire behavior prediction, fire weather and fuel assessment."

Oswald has been at SFA since 1995 and currently teaches forest ecology, fire management, range management, fire use, regional silviculture, research methods, fire ecology, and forest and range ecological concepts. His research focuses on fire ecology, silviculture and agroforestry.

Oswald, professor of forestry, joined the SFA faculty after teaching at Alabama A&M University. He was named the Hunt Distinguished Professor of Forestry in 2007.

Oswald has served for nine years on the Board of Directors for the Association for Fire Ecology and is currently president of that organization. In 2002 he was awarded the Carl A. Schenck Award for Outstanding Forestry Education by the Society of American Foresters.

He earned a Bachelor of Science in Forestry from Michigan State University, a Master of Science in Forestry from Northern Arizona University and a Ph.D. in Forestry, Wildlife and Range Sciences from University of Idaho. The College of Natural Resources at the University of Idaho presented him with the Mid-Career Alumni Achievement Award in 2004, and the School of Forestry at NAU recognized him as the Distinguished Alumnus in 2009.

This is the eighth in a series of lectures delivered by SFA Regents Professors. The series is sponsored by the SFA Office of the Provost and the University Lecture Series Committee.