UT professor to discuss last year’s wildfires on April 13 in Oak Ridge

A University of Tennessee professor will discuss the devastating wildfires in the Southeast in 2016 during a talk in Oak Ridge on April 13.

The featured speaker will be UT professor Henri Grissino-Mayer, a renowned expert on ecosystems, a press release said. He will address the devastating fires, their cause, and what the future may be, a press release said.

The talk is titled “The 2016 Wildfires in the Southeastern U.S.: What Comes Next after Gatlinburg?” It will be presented by the University of Tennessee Arboretum Society.

It’s scheduled from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday, April 13, in the UT Arboretum Auditorium at 901 South Illinois Avenue in Oak Ridge.

Grissino-Mayer is a professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Science.He studies ecosystem disturbance processes and uses dendrochronology, the science of tree rings, to learn how environments have changed over time, the press release said. His research concentrates on using tree-ring data to analyze the history of wildfires, the history of past climate, and the dating of historic structures and objects.

Grissino-Mayer has given more than 460 professional presentations and invited talks, and he has published more than 130 peer-reviewed papers, the press release said. His research was twice honored with Discover Magazine’s Top Science Stories in 1992 and 2006, while the Weather Channel in 2006 voted his research as one of the 100 Greatest Moments in Weather History.

At the University of Tennessee, Grissino-Mayer was awarded the Chancellor’s Award for Professional Promise in 2005, the Chancellor’s Award for Extraordinary Service in 2009, and the College of Arts and Sciences’ Senior Research Award in 2013.

In 2014, the National Council for Geographic Education awarded him the Geographic Excellence in Media Award while the Southeastern Division of the American Association of Geographers awarded him their top Research Honors Award, the press release said.

In recent years, he has appeared in television documentaries and news stories shown on CNN, the History Channel, BBC Television, the Discovery Channel, the Investigation Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel, the Weather Channel, the National Geographic Channel, Court TV, and many local stations, the press release said.

This is a free program offered by the University of Tennessee Arboretum Society, but donations are gladly accepted at the door to further the mission of the UT Arboretum, the press release said.

To learn more about this lecture or the UT Arboretum Society, go to www.utarboretumsociety.org.

Celebrating 52 years in 2017, this program is one of many lectures and activities that will be offered this year by the UT Arboretum Society. The program is cosponsored by the UT Forest Resources AgResearch and Education Center.

The Forest Resources AgResearch and Education Center, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2014, is one of 10 outdoor laboratories located throughout the state as part of the UT AgResearch system. AgResearch is a division of the UT Institute of Agriculture. The Institute of Agriculture also provides instruction, research, and public service through the UT College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, the UT College of Veterinary Medicine, UT AgResearch, and UT Extension offices, with locations in every county in the state.

This press release was submitted by Melanie Staten.