The University of Minnesota Department of Forest Resources is pleased to announce that Dr. Rebecca Montgomery has been appointed as the new F.B. Hubachek Senior Endowed Chair in Forestry. She is the second honoree to receive this designation, following Dr. Peter Reich, who initiated the role in 1991.
The F.B.Hubachek Senior Endowed Chair is dedicated to wilderness, forest ecology, and forestry research. The position is named after Frank Brookes Hubachek Sr., whose family’s endowment of land in Ely, Minnesota, established the Hubachek Wilderness Research Center (HWRC), one of 10 unique Research and Outreach Centers within the University of Minnesota’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS). The Hubachek family supported the creation of the F.B.Hubachek Senior Endowed Chair in Forestry position.
Dr. Montgomery was nominated as Chair in recognition of her scholarly record and long-term dedication to interdisciplinary forest ecology research.
“We are excited for Rebecca to lead future research as the F.B. Hubachek Senior Endowed Chair by engaging a range of scientists, students, and community members in long-term projects and continuing to build the international scholarship of wilderness science,” says Interim Department of Forest Resources Head Dr. Kristen Nelson.
Dr. Montgomery’s research supports solving real-world problems in forest ecology, conservation, and management. Through field-based studies in tropical, temperate, and boreal forests, she strives to better understand plant response to environmental changes like fire and wind disturbances, warming temperatures, altered patterns of rainfall, and rising levels of CO2. She is a primary investigator, with Dr. Reich, on the ongoing B4WarmED: Boreal Forest Warming at an Ecotone in Danger project, located in part at the HWRC. She has authored or co-authored close to 100 research papers, mentored numerous graduate students, and inspired undergraduates in her ecology courses. The popular science book, Minnesota’s Natural Heritage, which she is a co-author of, has been called the “definitive volume on the state’s natural history and ecology.”
As the F.B. Hubachek Senior Endowed Chair, Dr. Montgomery will continue her work developing strong, extramurally funded research programs in forest ecology, teaching and advising undergraduate and graduate students, mentoring post-doctoral research, and serving the mission of the Department.