Student Focus - Erin Quigley
I’m a PhD student in Forest Resources, working as a research assistant with the Sustainability Solutions Initiative. I’m on the Emerald Ash Borer Team, where we are studying and facilitating the ways that Wabanaki basket-makers, tribes, state and federal foresters, university researchers, landowners and others come together to prevent, detect, and respond to the threat of the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) – a potentially devastating exotic Asian beetle that attacks and kills ash trees. I have an undergraduate degree in Anthropology and Sociology and a M.S. degree in Natural Resources, so this project offers the perfect opportunity to blur the lines between disciplines by combining the technical and ecological aspects of forest management with the study of stakeholder interactions and policy.
Over the past few years, when I haven’t been in school, I have been a Forest Service field technician, a forestry consultant, a conservation easement monitor, a food co-op founding committee member, a wetlands assessor, a lumberjack contest scorer, a climate change superhero, a working farmland preservationist, an adjunct faculty member, a GIS mapper, a landscaper, and a canoe-trail administrator, among other things.
When I’m not working but have to stay inside I like to write, preserve food for the winter, and play old time music on the fiddle. Outside, I like to hike up things, canoe down things, camp out, ski in the backcountry, climb rocks, and find swimming holes.
