Kate Sherren

Landscapes - People - Global change

Tag: rangeland

Cluster of panel roles

February 15, 2022 /
Show the first page of the slide show from NSIS event

Screensnap from the NSIS event on Feb 7, 2022

It has been a busy start of term, and I am startled to see it is my first posting in 2022, though the first of several in quick succession. Today was the last of a spate of online roles in the last 8 days, all of which were enjoyable. First up was a guest spot talking about social science to the students of Dalhousie’s NSERC CREATE  in Leadership in Energy Sustainability (LES). That group is largely comprised of engineers but demonstrated great curiosity and asked great questions of me and my highly complementary co-panelist Tamara Krawchenko from UVic. Kudos to CRC II Karen Foster for coordinating and chairing.

That evening, I enjoyed participating as part of a ResNet-themed panel for the Nova Scotia Institute of Science. Colleagues Jeremy Lundholm (SMU), Danika van Proosdij (SMU), Alana Pindar (CBU) and I talked about the work of Landscape 1 of ResNet, and specifically the different pieces of the ecosystem services ‘puzzle’ associated with dykeland decision-making. This one is recorded, with me and Jeremy in this video, and Alana and Danika (as well as questions) in this one.

The following day, though it wasn’t a panel , I really enjoyed participating in the online Rangeland Social Science gathering, an informal event that happens pretty regularly in combination with the Society for Range Management meeting (this year happening in Albuquerque, NM). Particularly delightful was a break-out group on rangeland culture with Maria Fernandez-Gimenez, Brooke McWherter, and Katie Walsh. We’re remarkably practiced now at engaging productively online with new people, a skill I hope we hold onto (within reason) to reduce the environmental impact of academic travel.

Finally, this morning, I played the anchor role in a morning-long symposium on Coastal Zone Change in Atlantic Canada run by the Dalhousie Coastal Hydrology Lab run by Dr. Barret Kurylyk (also a ResNet colleague). That event included ResNet people including HQP Nicole LeRoux, Danika van Proosdij, as well as Patricia Manuel, collaborator in TransCoastal Adaptations and OGEN. It is a small world here in Nova Scotia.

Rangeland social science meeting

January 28, 2018 /
Lynn Huntsinger and Tracy Hruska at a cafe in Reno, the biggest little city in the world

Lynn Huntsinger and Tracy Hruska at a cafe in Reno, the biggest little city in the world

I am in Sparks, Nevada, at an invited meeting of rangeland social scientists (RSS) organized by Hailey Wilmer and Mark Brunson before the Society for Range Management meeting. I arrived in San Francisco late Friday to visit with Berkeley professor Lynn Huntsinger and her UNevada Geography professor husband Paul Starrs. The view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the harbour was stunning as the sun set, and Paul’s posole a delight. The next morning Lynn and I transected California’s many landscapes and production systems up across the snowy Sierra Nevada (and the notorious Donner Pass), with two of her Berkeley lab PhD students, Tracy Hruska and Sheila Barry.

DRI research professor Tamara Wall prepares to chair us in our RSS unconference

DRI research professor Tamara Wall prepares to chair us in our RSS unconference

Both Sheila and Tracy have led papers or chapters I really like, so it was the beginning of a day full of happy name recognition. Awaiting us at the lovely Desert Research Institute where the RSS meeting was being held: thirty more people  whose work I have enjoyed and cited since my Australian post-doc. Simply meeting them has made the trip worthwhile, and hearing kind words of appreciation in turn a bonus, particularly for my new commentary on standalone social science in rangelands. The meeting is following an un-conference format, which is new to me, but allowed for a very egalitarian agenda design, and productive discussions in small groups and together. I joined a group on community-building and integration, where those from a mix of career stages discussed the importance of an attractive career script for RSS practitioners, and how this nascent community could help. We’ll pick up some of the threads later today for day two of the un-meeting.

 

Congratulations, Kristine

November 22, 2017 /

Kristine Dahl, Masters candidate at U of A, photographed at SRM back in 2011

Congratulations to Kristine Dahl, MSc candidate on the SSHRC-funded Reconciling HM project, for winning the AltaLink Master’s Scholarship in Rangeland Disturbance Ecology. Kristine is based at the University of Alberta, supervised by project collaborators John Parkins and Ed Bork. She has just had a busy mixed-methods field season interviewing western ranchers about their grazing practices and decision-making as well as undertaking rangeland assessments. Not many people are able to do both well. Glad to have her on the team.

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