In 2025, the Center for the Future of Forests and Society made awards in two categories: Research Projects and Project Explorations. Research Projects support multi-year, interdisciplinary work tackling big questions about climate resilience and the future of forests and communities. Project Explorations provide seed funding for early-stage ideas and collaborations, giving researchers room to test new approaches that may grow into larger initiatives.

Together, these awards highlight the CFFS's commitment to bold, cross-disciplinary thinking and to building innovative solutions at the intersection of forests and society. For more information about any of the projects listed below, please contact the Lead PI.

Research Projects Awards: 

“Restoring Eco-Cultural Resilience and Adaptive Capacity: A Collaborative, Decolonial Study of Indigenous Knowledge and Western Science of Oregon’s Coast Range” (Meg Krawchuk, Lead PI)
Our project aims to recognize, understand, and support Indigenous stewardship of the landscapes of the Oregon Coast Range (OCR), with a particular focus on cultural fire histories, to help inform eco-cultural resilience and adaptation that is place-based for Tribal Peoples and broader communities. This work centers Indigenous Knowledge (IK), challenging dominant Western ecological frameworks by emphasizing place-based practices as critical pathways for eco-cultural resilience. Honoring integrity and humility by prioritizing Tribal sovereignty and ethical engagement with IK, our interdisciplinary team is committed to decolonial methodologies of deep listening and co-production with Tribal Elders and Knowledge Keepers. Together, we will weave social science (interviews and participatory mapping), biophysical sciences (geolocated historic aerial photography and dendroecological data), and IK (oral histories) to generate culturally grounded insights about landscapes, fire, and stewardship of the OCR. These glimpses of a resilient, mosaic-like landscape invite us to reexamine ecosystem assumptions, calling for a transdisciplinary approach to understanding the region’s historical fire regimes, stewardship, and forest patterns. Together, we ask an overarching question: How can Indigenous Knowledge and Western Science converge to foster climate resilience and adaptation for the forests, meadows, and firescapes of Oregon’s Coast Range eco-cultural system?

“How hot is too hot, and how dry is too dry? Assessing tree and forest resilience and vulnerability to extreme heat and drought in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest” (Chris Still, Lead PI)
One of the most likely climate change impacts is a continued increase in extreme events. Heat waves like the record-shattering June 2021 Heat Dome impacted trees across many parts of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest (PNW), including damage to leaves and buds which impacted subsequent growth and mortality. Many trees in the PNW are also threatened by extreme droughts like what occurred in the 2015 water year. Heat and drought greatly enhance wildfires, and a warming-driven shift in the snow-rain balance and less summer rain will lead to much drier and warmer summers that could further impact forests and the social and economic benefits they provide. For example, forest managers, small woodland owners, and timber companies are challenged by failures in post-fire restoration and forest regeneration due to hotter and drier conditions. Given ongoing climatic changes, and the challenges they present to our society and economy, it’s critical that we understand the resilience and vulnerability of our tree species and forests to extreme heat and drought, and to assess the potential of different tree genotypes and species for climate-resilient and adaptive management. We propose to address these gaps with interlinked research projects that build upon existing efforts across the College of Forestry and with partner agencies, Extension, companies, and landowners. This work directly addresses the theme of this RFP and links to the CFFS mission to “advance systems-based science and knowledge to ensure the resiliency of our forests, inform sustainable forest management practices and positively impact society.

“Quantifying the effects of global wood trade on forest resilience” (Matt Betts, Lead PI)
Our multidisciplinary project aims to address forest resilience at the global scale by developing data-driven systems that facilitate meeting wood demand while reducing the negative effects of harvesting on global biodiversity and carbon storage. This requires integrating ecological science, economics, climate science and policy analysis, and we will use this grant to kickstart a major interdisciplinary collaboration - an Alliance on Global Wood Outcomes (AGWO) - focused on revealing and reducing the environmental footprint embedded in international wood trade. Through targeted collaboration with key environmental policymakers, stakeholders, and artists, we will leverage our collaboration to help inform government stakeholders and the private sector.

Project Explorations Awards:

“Art history and historical ecology - Program development and collaborative workshop” (Dana Warren, Lead PI)
We are proposing a research effort that will have three core components. First, we will develop a network of ecologists and art historians from across the country with an interest in integrating art history and historical ecology… Network development and research efforts at the intersection of these fields will dovetail into the second core component of this project: an interdisciplinary workshop in May 2026 to promote the exchange of ideas and facilitate tangible research outcomes from scholars throughout our network… Finally, while the first two components of this research focus on a national effort integrating art history and historical ecology, the third component focuses on developing an OSU-specific program establishing ourselves as a central hub for historical ecology research in the Pacific Northwest (PNW).

“Co-Building Forest Community Resilience to Climate-Induced Disasters” (Mariapaola Riggio, Lead PI)
Climate-induced disasters disproportionately affect low-income and marginalized groups, who often experience deeper, longer-term consequences. These impacts include population displacement and the loss of physical assets, like homes and infrastructure, as well as intangible assets, such as cultural heritage and community ties, which are rarely restored with suitable alternatives or within a reasonable timeframe. Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities are impacted even more severely by disasters due to lack of resources and capacity within their communities to adequately address catastrophes. Our long-term goal is to enhance resilience for forest communities by examining how socio-economic, policy, biophysical, and built environment factors influence both vulnerability to disasters and potential solutions to mitigate these effects. Our initial exploration will use community vulnerability to wildland fire as an example of a natural disaster of increasing concern with climate change, and wood-based structures as potential solutions that can be produced with Oregon resources.

“Integrating remote sensing technology, biology, and art to understand the vulnerability of Pacific Northwest dry forests” (Loren Albert, Lead PI)
To realize the full potential applications of combining new remote sensing technologies to monitor and predict forest health, numerous conceptual, technical, and methodological challenges must be addressed, and their solutions will draw from multiple disciplines, including remote sensing, tree physiology, tree ecology, computer science, and image processing. We are also interested in the perspective of visual artists to extract meaning from images using very different approaches that might lead to new ways to process, integrate, or publicly disseminate these science-based images.

“Novel Approach For 3D Printing of Lignocellulosic Materials with Living Microorganisms” (Wenjia Wang, Lead PI)
This proposal aims at addressing forest residue challenges by combining biological strategies with advanced manufacturing techniques to develop innovative bio-composite materials. We will develop techniques to use 3D printing technologies to recruit microorganisms in the production of functional biomaterials from forest residue. Our concept relies on utilizing saprotrophic bacteria to produce extracellular metabolites that can function as adhesives. The proposed work will devise a method for producing stable bacterial cultures in wet furnish consisting of lignocellulose and nutrient media that can be extruded into custom forms. Process engineering will develop a method to time furnish drying with adequate bio-adhesive production which will produce a reproducible furnish ready to cure into a stable bio-composite.