MSU Geographers Awarded 2021 Project of the Year by Department of Defense Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program

January 7, 2022

A research project for which Dr. Sharon Zhong has served as a co-PI and Michael Kiefer as a senior personnel member has been named as the 2021 Resource Conservation and Resiliency Project of the Year by the Department of Defense Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP). The project titled "Multi-scale Analyses of Wildland Fire Combustion Processes in Open-canopied Forests using Coupled and Iteratively Informed Laboratory-, Field-, and Model-based Approaches" has been led by Dr. Nicholas Skowronski of the U.S. Forest Service. It combines field studies, laboratory experiments, and numerical modeling to quantify how variability in fuel characteristics and atmospheric conditions interact to drive fire behavior during prescribed burns. The outcome will improve the understanding of, and the ability to accurately predict, fire behavior under a wide range of management scenarios.  

The SERDP and Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) Project of the Year awards honor significant research and demonstration achievements in addressing the Department of Defense's environmental and installation energy challenges.

Congratulations to Drs. Zhong, Kiefer, and Skowronski! Click here for an overview of the project.