A dozen scientists and engineers from the ÌìÃÀÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½ have been elected to the . According to a statement released by the organization, the new members were selected for “their outstanding record of scientific achievement and willingness to work on behalf of the academy in bringing the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington.”

Three of the new members from UW were chosen because they had been elected recently to one of the National Academies — the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine. The other nine were elected by current members.

In all, UW faculty make up half of the 24 new members, who will be formally inducted in September during an annual meeting at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

Elected through recent admission to a National Academy:

: professor of computer science and engineering, to the National Academy of Engineering

: professor of atmospheric sciences, to the National Academy of Sciences

: professor of pediatrics, director of the Center for Clinical and Translational Research and associate director of the Pediatric Clinical Research Center at Seattle Children’s, to the National Academy of Medicine

Elected by current members of the Washington State Academy of Sciences:  

: professor and chair of chemical engineering, adjunct professor of bioengineering

: professor of sociology

: associate professor of physiology and biophysics

: professor of oceanography

: professor of nursing, adjunct professor of medicine

: professor of environmental and forest sciences

: professor and chair of bioengineering

: professor of biochemistry, professor of chemistry

: professor of chemical engineering, director of the Clean Energy Institute, adjunct professor of materials science and engineering

Incorporated by legislation in 2007, the Washington State Academy of Sciences initially had just 105 members. With this new crop of members from UW and other institutions around the state, the academy’s total membership will rise to 264. The academy’s mission is “to provide expert scientific and engineering analysis to inform public policymaking in Washington, and to increase the role and visibility of science in the state.”

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For more information, contact James Urton in the UW Office of News & Information at 206-543-2580 or jurton@uw.edu.

The has named ÌìÃÀÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½ professor its “Eminent Ecologist” of 2016. The award, considered the organization’s most prestigious accolade, honors a senior ecologist who has made significant, long-standing contributions to the field of ecology.

Franklin, who in his 60-year career has bridged philosophical gaps between traditional logging-oriented forestry and ecology, is credited with being the first scientist to focus research on old-growth forests, and for challenging clear-cutting practices to mold a “new forestry” dedicated to healthy forest ecosystems.

“There are a lot of really excellent people who are part of the Ecological Society of America,” said Franklin, a professor in the UW’s . “I certainly didn’t ever expect this award.”

“As one of the world’s premier forest ecologists, Jerry Franklin transformed forest ecology and management in the U.S. and left an indelible mark on ecology writ large. Jerry seamlessly blended science and management throughout his career and his infectious enthusiasm for trees, ecosystems and landscapes has inspired several generations of ecologists. He is richly deserving of this recognition by ESA,” said , the organization’s president and a professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Franklin started his career with the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station in western Oregon, then became a UW professor in 1986 after 30 years as a forester. He worked for former President Bill Clinton on the controversial , the series of federal policies and guidelines that stopped clear-cutting of old-growth and refocused the Forest Service’s mission on nurturing forest ecosystems and their biological diversity.

Franklin also advised the U.S. House of Representatives and continues to work with the Obama administration on forest policy issues.

“The evolution of the science of forests as ecosystems has matured,” Franklin said. “The application of that science and how you go about managing forests in that way is perhaps the most important thing I’ve done. But it started with the old-growth.”

“I was really frustrated that nobody knew anything about old-growth forests. I was bound and determined that one way or another we were going to learn something about them. I thought perhaps we were only creating a historic record of something that would be extinct, but in the end, we ended up still having a lot of old-growth here.”

A group of Franklin’s former graduate students — many of them now professors — nominated him for the prestigious award. Central to the nomination were numerous letters of support from Franklin’s colleagues around the world — accomplished professors, deans and scientists who cited his impact, particularly early in their careers.

“All of these colleagues jumped at the chance to write a letter supporting him,” said , an associate professor of forest ecology at the University of Montana and a former student of Franklin’s, who organized the nomination.

“The letters were breathtaking. These are globally recognized people, and to read the things they said about him was incredible.”

Franklin’s work is ingrained in the fields of forestry and forest ecology in ways that are hard to match.

“His influence is so great that it’s hard to have conversation in the field without his name coming up. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve been at a meeting and high-level speakers are compelled to mention him and invoke him in their work,” Larson added.

Throughout his career, Franklin played a significant role in developing major, multi-institutional programs aimed at incorporating ecological principles at the broadest scale, including the in the 1960s and early 1970s, and later the .

He was the first program officer for the Ecosystem Studies Program at the National Science Foundation, where he helped nurture long-term ecological research around the country.

In Washington, among many other research efforts, Franklin secured funding to establish the Wind River Canopy Crane in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest to study old-growth tree canopies, a research program that .

Despite a staggering list of achievements, published papers and awards, Franklin is just a nice guy, humble to the core, colleagues say. He has advised nearly 50 graduate students and continues to teach undergraduate courses in ecology and forest management. His favorite place to teach is in the woods, and most of his students get to experience a week or two of lectures under immense ponderosa pines and Douglas-fir trees.

The Ecological Society of America will honor Franklin and its other award winners at the organization’s annual meeting this August in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The society, founded in 1915, is the world’s largest community of professional ecologists. The 10,000 member organization publishes six journals and a membership bulletin and broadly shares ecological information through policy, media outreach and education initiatives.

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Contact Franklin at jff@uw.edu or 206-543-2138. For information about the award, contact Liza Lester at the Ecological Society of America: 202-833-8773 ext. 211 or LLester@esa.org.

The two professions historically didn’t see eye to eye, but Franklin, in his current role as a UW professor of environmental and forest sciences and previously as a forester with the U.S. Forest Service, has in his 60-year career found a way to integrate ecological and economic values into forestry. He is now a world-renowned leader in sustainable forest management.

The Washington, D.C.-based recently awarded Franklin its , which honors “an individual who has made extraordinary and valuable contributions to science or practice in environmental conservation and sustainable natural resources management.” The award is named for Gifford Pinchot, the first leader of the U.S. Forest Service and an advocate for conservation.

With the award, Franklin was invited to give a distinguished lecture to members of the , a private club in D.C. whose members include political and scientific leaders. Among the many awards he has collected, this one is particularly significant, he said.

“I’ve always felt like I was too much of an ecologist for the foresters, and too much of a forester for the ecologists. This really indicated to me that, yes, I’ve had a big impact in forestry,” Franklin said.

“It recognizes me both for the science and the role I’ve had in seeing that science incorporated into policy. Our whole perspective on forests has changed in 60 years, essentially the span on my career.”

Franklin started his career with the Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station in western Oregon, then became a UW professor in 1986 after 30 years as a forester. He was one of the first scientists to study natural forest ecosystems, particularly old-growth forests, and is often referred to as the “father of new forestry.”

“From my perspective, Jerry Franklin is one of the most influential forest ecologists of our time,” said , professor and director of the .

“Jerry has been instrumental in the evolution of forestry in the Pacific Northwest and continues to push the envelope on creating an ecological approach to forestry that appropriately integrates people into the larger forest ecosystem.”

Franklin worked for former President Bill Clinton on the controversial , the series of federal policies and guidelines that essentially reversed clear-cutting of old growth and refocused the Forest Service’s mission on nurturing forest ecosystems and their biological diversity. He also advised the U.S. House of Representatives and continues to work with the Obama administration on forest policy issues.

These tasks weren’t easy, and Franklin said he has angered both sides — environmentalists and timber companies — by advocating the best science for forest management.

“I’ve riled up everybody,” Franklin said with a laugh. “I’ve always viewed my clients as the trees and forests. I don’t pick up anybody’s agenda for them.”

Franklin has also served on a number of boards and governing panels, including The Wilderness Society, the Ecological Society of America and the Nature Conservancy. He has published more than 450 scientific articles and books.

“Jerry helped reveal the richness and complexity of forest biomes, adding immeasurably to our understanding of the world around us, and providing a new benchmark upon which future scientists will build,” said Will Price, acting president of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation.

“Through Jerry’s dedication to communicating scientific results and informing decision-makers, ecologically sound forest management techniques that were characterized as ‘new forestry’ a generation ago have now become conventional wisdom in the management of forests in the Pacific Northwest, across the country, and around the world. Jerry’s remarkable courage and commitment were critical in this achievement.”

Franklin’s previous honors include an from the Heinz Foundation and a in 2004 from the Society for Conservation Biology.

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For more information, contact Franklin at jff@uw.edu or 206-543-2138.

In a published Sept. 17 in Science, a team of scientists, including ÌìÃÀÓ°ÊÓ´«Ã½ researchers and , describe unique opportunities and provide suggestions to reform forest fire management to reduce the impacts of inevitable wildfires in future years.

“It’s very clear that our current policies aren’t working,” said Franklin, a professor of environmental and forest sciences. “We need to change our policies to recognize the use of more prescribed and natural fire to deal with the conditions we’re seeing in our forests today as well as to greatly accelerate restoration of more resilient conditions in accessible forests that have been dramatically altered over the past century.”

The authors suggest that change come in the form of more prescribed and managed burns, increased tree thinning and less suppression of wildfires in specific conditions. The authors point to Parks Canada, which divides the landscape into different zones for fire management.

For example, U.S. forest plans could:

• Use mechanical thinning and wildfire suppression near homes
• Use prescribed fire and mechanical treatments just outside of the wildland-urban interface
• Allow more remote lands to burn as managed wildfires when naturally ignited and use prescribed fires to clear out thick, dry brush and other wildfire fuel

Through these zones, the U.S. could restore large swaths of forests — such as the eastern slope of the Cascades in Washington and Oregon and much of California’s Sierra Nevada — to a more natural state in which they wouldn’t ignite into devastatingly large fires that are dangerous and costly to fight, Franklin said.

“There’s a huge area of accessible forestlands we could restore to a much more resilient condition that would be much less prone to catastrophic fires,” he said.

Historically, these frequent-fire forest regions in the Intermountain West often experienced low-intensity fires, which kept the forest from building up excess fuels in the form of dense brush and trees. But under the U.S. Forest Service’s philosophy of suppressing fire, every fire is generally given the same response — react with firefighters to control and put it out, regardless of whether it would be prudent to let it burn monitored, Franklin said.

In Washington state, nearly 900,000 acres , mostly east of the crest of the Cascade Range, which was a region historically characterized by frequent but low-severity fires. Franklin noted that the region’s coastal forests, including the west slope of the Cascades, are by nature denser, wetter forests and are generally not candidates for prescribed fires or fuel reductions except in urban areas.

In the U.S., 98 percent of wildfires are suppressed before reaching 300 acres. Yet the 2 percent that escape containment account for 97 percent of firefighting costs and total burned area, the authors said.

The current funding structure for fire management encourages that imbalance. The authors write that, for individual national forests, “fire suppression is steadfastly financed through dedicated congressional appropriations,” which are supplemented with emergency funding.

However, funding for fuels reduction and prescribed burns comes out of a limited budget allotted to each national forest and is often borrowed to cover suppression costs.

The recently released and the Forest Service’s current efforts to revise national forest plans provide incentives — and distinct opportunities — for change. Most of the 155 national forests will begin writing new plans and holding public forums within the next 10 years.

Further, public resistance to controlled fire management, such as objections to smoke and negative perceptions of forest fires, is starting to shift.

This growing public and congressional awareness of the problem is placing additional pressure on state and federal agencies to better manage forests and fires. The authors said this kind of support is needed to enact true change — not just at the policy level, but also with actual wildfire response.

“Management reform in the United States has failed, not because of policy, but owing to lack of coordinated pressure sufficient to overcome entrenched agency disincentives to working with fire,” the authors write.

The commentary’s lead author is of the Forest Service and University of California, Davis. Other co-authors are from UC Berkeley, The Wilderness Society, Northern Arizona University and the Forest Service.

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For more information, contact Franklin at 425-392-7655 or 425-503-0354 (cell) and jff@uw.edu.

This is adapted from a UC Davis .