New Fellow Matt Vadeboncoeur featured on University of New Hampshire's website
Graduate student Matthew Vadeboncoeur was recently awarded a 2011 Switzer Environmental Fellowship by the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation. The fellowship is one of just 20 awarded this year by the foundation for emerging environmental leaders who are pursuing graduate degrees and are dedicated to working towards positive environmental change in their career work. Fellows, chosen from universities in New England and California, each receive $15,000 to help them complete their degrees.
Vadeboncoeur, of Harrisville, R.I., is a Ph.D. candidate in the Natural Resources and Earth Systems Science (NRESS) program. His research is focused on understanding management‐ and disturbance‐related changes to the cycling of nutrients in forest ecosystems. Currently he is using a detailed regional soil chemistry data set he collected with collaborators to characterize variation in the long‐term sustainability of forest harvesting across the northern hardwood forest region.
“I’m trying to figure out what we need to measure and monitor if we are going to really intensify harvesting as an energy source,” says Vadeboncoeur. “If you look at some of these forests today you’ll see they’re healthy and regenerating very well, but if they’re harvested a few more times that could change in some places because of the complex underlying soil chemistry.”