UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
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Eshetu Yirdaw has been a university lecturer / associate professor at the Viikki Tropical Resources Institute of the University of Helsinki starting from 2008. His area of expertise is tropical forest ecology with a main focus on restoration ecology and biodiversity. Plantation and natural tropical forest management, agroforestry, and conservation ecology are also parts of his specialisation. Community participation and soil conservation have been important components of his research activities. He has been organizing and teaching undergraduate and post-graduate courses. He has been also supervising doctoral and MSc students from several countries. Furthermore, he has conducted research in Africa and Southeast Asia and published in peer-reviewed international scientific journals. Currently, he is the leader of the HEI-ICI funded CLIDEV project (2020-2024). He was the leader of Academy of Finland funded project (2013-2014) entitled “Private agricultural investments and land use change impact on the adaptive capacity of local communities to climate change in Mozambique”. He was also leader of a HEI-ICI project (2013-2015) entitled “Forest Landscape Rehabilitation in the Mekong River Basin”. In addition, he has worked as the coordinator of the CIMO funded project in which universities from Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan were partners. From 2005 to 2008, he was the coordinator of the EU Asia-Link project Forest restoration and rehabilitation in Southeast Asia (FORSSA). |
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Nicholas Hogarth has over 12-years’ experience living and working in the Global South on forestry and rural development issues, including field-research and capacity-building. Geographical foci include China, Laos, Indonesia, and Cambodia, but he also has long-term experience co-managing a 24-country research project on forests and livelihoods. He has also worked as a consultant for the UN, CIFOR, Australian Aboriginal Corporations, and others. Key expertise include: analysing rural livelihoods, design of household data collection tools, field-based data collection, quantification of forest & environmental income, forest landscape restoration, small and large-scale tree plantations, bamboo, scientific writing and editing, systematic reviews, project monitoring and evaluation. |
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Adrian Monge has been working on research and capacity building projects in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America over the last 20 years. His experience includes teaching forestry and environmental issues in Finland and abroad, preparation, coordination and implementation of e-learning courses, drafting and submitting research and development cooperation proposals. Key expertise areas include developing digital tools for data collection, forest and climate change (adaptation and mitigation), forest inventories and management, participatory research, and ecosystem services. |
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Dipjoy Chakma is working as a Project Planner at the Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki. He holds a MSc degree (Agri. & For.) from University of Helsinki majoring in Forest Products Marketing. He has over 9 years of field-research and capacity building project experiences in Mekong region. His expertise includes project management, project proposal writing, non-timber forest products research and market analysis, participatory research, field-based data collection, livelihood analysis and forest policy analysis. |
CZECH UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES PRAGUE
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Jiří Remeš is one of the leading experts in Czechia on the topics of evaluation of silvicultural systems and forest regeneration, restoration of forest ecosystems as well as close-to-nature silviculture and cultivation of introduced tree species in the Czech Republic with about 30 years of experience in silvicultural systems. He is the lecturer of the Silviculture course at CZU and guarantees the Master study program Forest Engineering. As a former vice-dean and now a vice-rector for Teaching and Learning, he has extensive experience in creating and innovating study programs at CZU. |
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Róbert Marušák focuses his research on optimization and the decision support systems in forestry, with regard to forest monitoring and inventory. With more than 20 years of teaching and research experience in the field of forest resource planning and inventory, he has extensive knowledge, applicable to forestry higher education and practice. Currently he serves as the dean of the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, CZU. |
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Radek Rinn is the current vice-dean for Strategy, Development and International Relations at the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, CZU. As a doctoral student at the Department of Forestry and Wood Economics, his research interests include the economics of forestry, project management in forestry, ecosystem services, and bioeconomy in forestry. His extensive experience in the operational programmes and grants of the European Union are vital for project coordination at CZU. |
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Martin Jankovský focuses on forestry technologies and operations. Namely human factors in forestry, an interest, which began in his PhD. Thesis, where he studied the interactions between the machine and environment systems on forestry workers and their physiological response to mental and physical loading. Aside from that, he also studies the environmental effects of forest harvesting machinery on forest stands. Martin’s teaching experience includes lecturing courses focused on the human factors and ergonomics, and forest harvesting at the Technical University in Zvolen, Slovakia and the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, CZU. |
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Martin Čabrada is currently the head of the Department for Development, which is the main project management office at the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, CZU. As a doctoral student at the Department of Forestry and Wood Economics, his research interests include the economics of forestry, project management in forestry, ecosystem services, and forestry-wood value chains. |
CHIANG MAI UNIVERSITY
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Stephen Elliott joined CMU Biology Department as a lecturer in tropical plant ecology and wildlife conservation in 1986. He co-founded FORRU-CMU with Dr. Vilaiwan Anusarnsunthorn in 1994 and continues to co-ordinate the unit's research program and supervise research students. He is also responsible for the unit's general administration, fund-raising, reporting to donors and English publications. His current main interest is automated forest restoration. |
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Prasit Wangpakapattanawong is an associate professor in biology at Chiang Mai University. He has played major roles in several of FORRU-CMU's international research projects, including FORRU’s work on Doi Mae Salong with FAO (on accelerated natural regeneration) and with World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) ("Making the Mekong Connect Project"). His specialties include carbon accounting and ethnoecology and he supervises several research students, working at FORRU-CMU's nurseries and field plots. |
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Sutthathorn Chairuangsri teaches ecology at CMU Biology Department and is now the Biology Department's Vice Chairperson and she manages the graduate Environmental Science Program. She co-manages FORRU-CMU with Dr. Elliott and is mainly responsible for co-ordinating the unit's education, training and outreach activities. Her research interests include mine rehabilitation and she supervises several of the unit's research students. |
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Pimonrat Tiansawat joined CMU Biology Department in 2013. She teaches plant ecology, experimental design and data analysis. Her research background includes seed ecology of forest tree species, including seed predation, persistence in the soil and germination. Her research work with FORRU-CMU concentrates on seed-based forest restoration, including direct seeding and aerial seeding. She also organizes FORRU-CMU's annual summer camp for Thailand university students. |
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Dia Shannon studied direct seeding for her M.Sc. in FORRU-CMU's field trial plot system at Ban Mae Sa Mai and subsequently became the unit's Field Officer. She went on to gain her Ph.D. at Walailak University, Thailand, by applying direct seeding techniques to restore southern lowland evergreen forests, under a Thailand’s Biodiversity Research and Training Program (BRT) scholarship. After attaining her doctorate, she returned to FORRU-CMU as Nursery Manager. In 2012, she became a lecturer in ecology at CMU's Biology Department and she now also runs CMU's Doi Suthep Nature Study Centre and advises research students. |
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Alice Sharp has worked in the field of natural resource management for more than 20 years. She is one of the experts in using the rural participatory approach in natural resource management. Her extensive works in the Southeast Asia region include participatory wetland management, food security from non-timber forest products, and community forest management in Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. |
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Watit Khokthong works as a lecturer in the Department of Biology, Chiang Mai University, Thailand. He integrates remote sensing research with environmental science. Besides, he focuses his research topics on forest ecology. To address previous and current research questions, he combine methods, observations and drones equipped with a camera. More specifically, Watit analyze 3D models of the vegetation such as canopy structures and stems for explaining functions and their roles in the ecosystem. |
KASETSART UNIVERSITY
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Damrong Pipatwattanakul is an Assistant Professor in Silviculture at the Faculty of Forestry, Kasetsart University based in Bangkok, Thailand. He has been a lecturer at the Department of Silviculture, Faculty of Forestry, KU since 1992 and specialize in forest landscape restoration and forest plantation. He has earned his Doctor of Science in Agriculture and Forestry from University of Helsinki, Finland in 1997. His research focus areas include forest restoration, forest tree seed technology, silvicultural practices, plantation management, and education development in Mekong Region. |
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Nopparat Kaakkurivaara, an Assistant Professor in Forest Engineering at the Faculty of Forestry, Kasetsart University. She has been a lecturer at Department of Forest Engineering, Kasetsart University since 2005. Her specialise is in forest harvesting, forest machinery, and forest certification. She received the M.Sc degree in Agriculture and Forestry from University of Joensuu, Finland in 2008, and graduated her Doctoral of Sciences in Forest Technology from University of Helsinki, Finland in 2014. She has been involved both national and international collaborative projects such as The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE), Mendel University, ABA international, mainly related to forest operations and work safety. Moreover, she has some years of experience on sustainable forest management and forest certification either be an auditor and/or local expert. She is very keen to learn about new technology that may facilitates the teaching more interesting i.e. gamification, virtual reality (VR), and other online platforms. |
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Chakrit Na Takuathung is a lecturer in forest engineering department at Kasetsart university, Thailand. He has been a faculty member since 2002 after completed his PhD in silviculture from the same university. His research experiences include forest ergonomics in various types of plantation in Thailand as well as mobile and web applications development on tree species database, tree biomass and carbon estimation, carbon storage in community forest, and plantation's value estimation for different utilization scenarios. His current interest looks at applying web mapping technology to forestry science. He has been elected and will serve as head of forest engineering department in 2021. |
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Rachanee Pothitan is an Assistant Professor in Social Forestry at the Department of Forest Management, the Faculty of Forestry, Kasetsart University, based in Bangkok, Thailand. She received an M.Sc. degree in Forestry from the University of the Philippines Las Banos and a Ph.D. degree in Integrated Science from Thammasat University. She specializes in social forestry, and her research focus area includes participatory forest management, non-timber forest products management, and forest extension. |
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Wirongrong Duangjai received the M.Sc. degree in Agriculture and Forestry from University of Joensuu, Finland and the Ph.D. degree in Natural Resources Management from Asian Institute of Technology (AIT). She is presently the assistant professor of Silviculture at the Faculty of Forestry, Kasetsart University. For research experiences, during 2006 to 2010, she had been involved in collaborative research projects of Making Mekong Connected: Agroforestry and Green Corridor financed by ICRAF, Republic of China and worked as a full-time researcher at Thailand Environment Institute (TEI), conducting research on the project of Environmental Good Governances and Developing Indicators, International Collaborative Headquarter Office. From 2010 to present, she has experienced on a lecturer who provides courses including natural resource management and environmental conservation, institutional development and forest regulations, forest tree farming, and extension of economic tree planting. |
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Srijidtra Charoenlarpnopparut received her Bachelor degree (with first class honor) in electrical engineering from Kasetsart University (KU) in 1993. She won the government scholarship to pursue her post graduate degree aboard in 1994. She completed her M.S. and Ph.D. degree from The Pennsylvania State University in 2004. Currently, she is an associate professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kasetsart University. As a full-time instructor at KU and also a guest instructor at Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology (SIIT), she has lectured many courses such as electronic circuits and laboratory, digital communication systems, applied coding, engineering mathematics, detection and estimation theory and etc. Her research area of interest includes image compression and transmission, coding and modulation, wireless multimedia network, 5G wireless communication network and Blockchain technology. |
SOUPHANOUVONG UNIVERSITY
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Si Anouvong Savathvong skilled in land use planning for mountainous area (watershed management) with master’s degree in regional studies. He has a strong background in community forestry and plantations, he is highly experienced in the field of managing of international collaborative projects aimed at a range of environmental issues. He regularly receives research grants from national and international agencies. |
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Vongpasith Chanthakhoun the current Dean of Faculty of Agriculture and Forest Resource, Souphanouvong University, Laos. He holds a PhD. Degree awarded by the Khon Kaen University, Thailand. His lectures on courses such as Experimental and Analysis Design, Nutrition, Analysis Design Thinking and Planning. He has extensive experience in creating and innovating academic activities and study programs. His research interests are in animal nutrition, food safety and environment conservation, particularly biogas and rural development (He has more than 40 publications as shown at Google scholar on Citations). He has experience with national consultants on SPS project in Laos, funded by ADB, ForHeal project, funded by Erasmus+ Programme, and he also coordinates several activities in R&D projects focused on natural resource use to increase the income of smallholder farmers. |
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Bounxian Phetlumphun holds an MSc degree in Park Recreation and Tourism from the Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand. His research and teaching activities centre on assessment of recreation resource potential and classification of recreation opportunity spectrum of nature-based recreation. Now, he works as a head of Department of Forest Resource, Faculty of Agriculture and Forest resource, Souphanouvong University. His research interests are in forest watershed conservation and restoration. He has experience with national consultants on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standard: SPS project in Laos. |
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Anousith Vannaphon is working at Souphanouvong University, Faculty of Agriculture and Forest Resource, Department of Forest Resource. The lectures he gives are Watersheds Management and Forest Management and Environmental Impact Assessment. He received his master’s degree in Environmental Science from University of Science, Vietnam National University. His research with UDON THANI RAJABHAT University was focused on The Luang prabang world heritage site: potentials for entering the ASEAN community in 2012-2013 and Research on Evaluating the impact of some indicator of domestic effluent on the quality of the Khan river, Luang Prabang Province 2016. He has experience as a researcher of project Development of innovative multilevel formation programs for the new water leading professionals in Southeast Asia – Inow Asia co-financed by Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education, Call EAC/A02/2019 - Selection Year 2020. Within last 3 years, he has also worked for FARFORM EU project. The field works were concerned with carbon scene - a tool to quantify ecosystem carbon in land use scenarios. Another project he experienced was FORHEAL, co-financed by Erasmus+ EU Programme, aimed at strengthening of the forest-related higher education system in Laos. |
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Beun Donsavanh holds a MSc. Degree in Environmental Forest Science from Seoul National University of Korea. His research focuses on a land use change at Phuhiphi National Protect Area in Oudomxay Province. He teaches primarily a course Forest and Climate Change for forest resource students. He works as a head of Ecotourism Knowledge Unit in Department of Forest Resource of Faculty of Agriculture and Forest Resource. He has experience in project aimed at climate change called REACT, co-financed by ERASMUS+ in 2017-2019 in Mekong Sub-region (Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam). |
SAVANNAKHET UNIVERSITY
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Bounheuang Ninchaleune holds a PhD Degree in socio-economic and environmental science from University of Putra Malaysia. He graduated a BSc and MSc in Forestry Science from Technology University Dresden (Germany). Currently, he is working as Vice President for Academic Affairs of Savannakhet University. In 2009 he worked as a Lecturer for EIA and Forest Soil Science at Faculty of Forestry, National University of Laos. In 2001 he worked as a Consultant for Road Improvement ADB Project for the Environmental Impact Assessment for 3 months in Xieng Khouang Province in Lao PDR. In 2000 he worked as a Consultant for the Community Managed Irrigation Sector Project on the fruit tree, timber planting and Sloping Agriculture Land Technology (SALT) establishment in the 4 Provinces and 1 Special Zone, Laos. In 1999 he carried out of Socio-Economic Survey in concessionaire areas in Vientiane and Xayaboury Provinces, Laos. In 1999 he conducted a research for FAO Project a case study titled “Forest Harvesting Impact on the Training and Model Forest Sang Thong District, Vientiane Municipality, Laos. |
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Somphong Chanthavong holds a PhD. degree in in Environmental Science and Management from University of the Philippines, Los Banos, the Philippines. He obtained a MSc. in Natural Resources Conservation from Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand and a BSc. in Forestry Engineering from University of Agriculture in Brno, former Czechoslovakia Socialistic Republic. Dr. Somphong is working as Acting Dean of Faculty of Agriculture and Environment at Savannakhet University, Laos. He is also country representative of the Laos to SEAMEO SEARCA Governing Board. Currently, he has four papers published at international institutions such as Institute for Global Environment Strategies (p44-54, 2004); Environment Asia (Vol. 12, Issue 2, 2019, p116-125; and Vol. 10, Issue 1, 2017, p52-62) and International Journal of Conservation Science (Vol.10, Issue 2, 2019, p 393-402). Regarding to Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), he had an opportunity to participate in International Training Program (ITP-SEA, 2017B) funded by Swedish International Development Coop. Agency (SIDA). His main interest is interdisciplinary research related to natural and environmental protection. |
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Bounyore Koulavong holds an MSc degree in Social Forestry and Forest Governance, awarded by the University of the Philippines Los Baňos, Philippines and BSc in Forest Resources, awarded by Souphanouvong University, Laos. His fields of special competence are social forestry, community forest, forest governance, forest management, community development, and ecotourism. His extensive experience in teaching includes: Forest Inventory, Wildlife conservation, Community forest, Logging, Ecotourism, Natural tourism management, and Pest and Forest diseases. |
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Lanta Ketoukham holds a Master degree in Education from International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan, Bachelor degree of Education in Teaching English from the National University of Laos, and Diploma of Conservation and Land Management from Swinburn University of Technology in Australia. She extensive experience and various training projects such, Comparative and international Education Society (CIES) 2018 in Mexico City, the Online Professional English Network by U.S Department State, flora and fauna in Australia, Ecosystem service in Finland, and related Forestry with German, Czech, and Finish University. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in Research curriculum Development and Instruction in Thailand. |
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Inta Chanthavong holds a MSc. degree in Resources Development and Agricultural Extension, awarded by the Maejo University, Thailand and a BSc degree in rural economy, awarded by the National University of Laos. Mr. Inta is working a Head of Administration and General Division, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, Savannakhet University, Lao PDR. He has 10 years research experiences in rural governance and policy development related issues in Laos. He mainly teaches project planning and management, rural economy, rural development and other related subjects. Inta have one paper published at Agricultural Research and Extension Journal; Volume 36; Issue 2. He also participated in international conferences such as “Linkages and Cooperation in Agricultural Production and Marketing in the Context of International Economic Integration” at Vietnam National University of Agriculture, Vietnam. Challenges of Sustainable Development and Social Impact on Cooperatives and Social Enterprises at Kasetsart University, Thailand. Environment, Livelihood and Services (ICELS 2018) at Kasetsart University, Thailand. And International Symposium on Sustainable Development and Internationalization of Higher Education at Savannakhet University, Lao PDR. |