Fall 2021 Colloquium Speaker Series – Jonathan Thompson

Past, present, and future land-use regimes of New England

Dr. Jonathan Thompson is a Senior Ecologist at the Harvard Forest, a department of Harvard University. His research focuses on long-term and broad-scale changes in forest ecosystems, with an emphasis on quantifying how land use – including harvest, conversion, and land protection – affects forest ecosystem processes and services. He is the Principal Investigator for the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and involving more than 100 scientists and students investigating the dynamics of the New England landscape. He also leads the New England Landscape Futures project, which collaborates with diverse stakeholders from throughout the region to build and evaluate scenarios that show how land-use choices and climate change could shape the landscape over the next 50 years. Thompson holds a PhD in Forest Ecology (2008) and a MS in Forest Policy (2004) from Oregon State University.