We are pleased to announce Emily Burns, Director of Science for the Save the Redwoods League, as the next speaker in the Spring 2018 Sustainable Futures Speaker Series. Emily will present on Thursday, March 22 from 5:30 to 7:00 pm in Founders Hall 118 (FH118) on the Humboldt campus. The title of her talk is "Restoring Redwood Forests in a Changing Climate."

The importance of coast redwood forests is increasing in this rapidly changing climate. The old-growth redwood forests of the north coast store world-record breaking amounts of carbon, and the redwoods themselves are growing faster today than in previous decades. Unfortunately, little old-growth redwood forest remains after more than a century of timber harvest, but research shows that restoration techniques are effective at accelerating the growth of harvested forests and increasing their carbon sequestration potential.

Emily Burns serves on Save the Redwoods League’s executive leadership team and directs the Research Program that includes the Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative and the Redwood Genome Project. In addition, she directs the League’s Restoration, Stewardship, and Conservation Planning Programs with a goal of ensuring that they are grounded in science and provide practical help to forest managers. Burns holds a PhD in Integrative Biology on the impacts of fog on coast redwood forest flora from the University of California, Berkeley and a BS in Plant Biology from the University of California, Davis. She is a Research Associate in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and she is the recipient of the 2013 Women in Science Frameshifter Award from St. Catherine University. Burns contributes frequently to the League’s blog, and in her scant spare time, she enjoys embroidering, particularly designs of native plants of redwood forests.