Welcome from the Forest Engineering Department faculty, staff, and students. This department is widely recognized for excellence in student education, creative problem-solving research, and innovative outreach education focused on forested watersheds. The faculty represents a mix of engineers, hydrologists, and forest scientists that apply engineering and forestry principles to solve complex forestry problems and support sustainable forests. Our faculty and graduates are in demand worldwide to provide knowledge, methods, and skills to design and carry out safe, economically viable, environmentally responsible, and socially acceptable forest resource operations.

We offer three undergraduate degree options. The forest engineering and forest engineering - civil engineering are both fully accredited in engineering (ABET EAC) and forestry (SAF). At last count, OSU is one of only three universities in the United States to offer an undergraduate degree in forest engineering. For both of these degrees our educational goal is to offer an engineering education within a strong forestry context. Graduation from either degree option provides access to careers as licensed professional engineers and professional land surveyors. The third option is the brand new forest operations management degree. This degree includes a minor in business and focuses more on harvesting or silvicultural projects. We will seek SAF accreditation for this program. Graduates are not eligible to pursue professional engineering registration. All three degrees lead to excellent employment opportunities. In addition to high quality classrooms and labs on campus, we have a 11,500-acre college-owned forest just 20 minutes from campus that provides excellent opportunities for field exercises and for recreation.

If you are interested in a graduate degree, we invite you to explore our concentrations in forest engineering, forest hydrology and forest soil science. You might also explore the OSU Water Resources Graduate Program. After Oregon passed the nation's first Forest Practices Act in 1971, forest hydrologists were added to the department to stimulate improved protection of water and soil resources during forestry activities. Many students customize degree programs that integrate elements of both areas. We typically have a diverse group of students representing several continents, so the education goes well beyond the classroom.

Many FE faculty members are recognized research leaders and several provide leadership in international scientific organizations. The faculty is pursuing a wide range of basic and applied research projects on topics that include: harvesting process engineering, transportation system design, understanding and mitigating environment impacts of forestry activities, spatially-explicit landscape modeling, applications of emerging information technologies, forestry workforce issues, and basic hydrological sciences. In addition, we have developed several decision-support software programs used throughout the world in designing forest operations.

Finally, we are proud of our longstanding efforts to promote high quality forest management and well-reasoned public policy and regulation by conveying information to practitioners, the public, and policy makers. In addition to many kinds of publications, we offer a diverse slate of continuing education courses, many of which are led by the Extension faculty in the department.

I invite you to browse through the Forest Engineering web site to learn more about our programs and us. We welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions.

Steve Tesch
Department Head