Department: Vegetable Production and Woodland Resources

Center: E. ING. IND. FORESTAL, AGRONOMICA Y BIOE

Institute: INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT

Area: Plant Production

Research group: CAMBIUM

Email: francisco.mauro@uva.es

Doctor by the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid with the thesis Estimación de variables dasométricas a partir de datos lidar y obtención de modelos de referencia para las distribuciones de alturas y diámetros del arbolado 2015. Supervised by Dr. Esperanza Ayuga Téllez, Dr. Antonio García Abril.

I graduated as Forest engineer in 2007 at Technical University of Madrid (UPM). At UPM I was awarded a grant from the doctoral studies program of UPM that allowed me to obtain my PhD. During my training period I did three stays at international research centers, one at University of Eastern Finland (3 months in 2011) and two at the Pacific Northwest Research Station in Corvallis, Oregon (5 and 2 months in 2009 and 2012, respectively). My thesis focused on Small Area Estimation applications (SAE) to forest inventories assisted with remote sensing data. I defended my dissertation in January 2015 and obtained the qualification Outstanding Cum-Laude with international mention. Main results from my thesis [12] were published in Environmetrics. This publication describes how to derive unbiased estimates and associated uncertainties for management units of different sizes. This publication started a research line that I further developed over the following years at Oregon State University (OSU). In March 2015, I was hired as postdoctoral researcher at OSU. I performed research in this institution for six years and ten months (03/2015 to 12/2021) at the Forest Measurements and Biometrics Laboratory. During my first years at OSU, I continued the research started during my dissertation in applications of SAE techniques to forest inventories and published 7 papers. In January 2018, I transitioned from a postdoctoral scholar to a portdoctoral research associate position. This change broadened my field of expertise allowing me to participate in projects seeking to improve the prediction of forest fuels using remote sensing. In 2019 I published the main findings of a project that aimed at estimating tree lists using lidar information , this is a research line in which I continue working very actively today. Some of the ways suggested in this publication to improve models for tree lists predictions have been integrated into two recently funded projects. The proposed investigation includes a continuation of the methodology in 2019 Overall, at OSU, I had the opportunity to participate in eight research projects funded by: 1) the (NASA), 2) US Forest Service (USFS) and 3) the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM), leading as CoPI two of them (JVA-20-1612 and 17-JV-11261989-018). In these projects I acquired the management skills needed by a principal investigator. In January 2022, I accepted a position at University of Valladolid, (UVa) funded by the Maria Zambrano Program. Currently I maintain an active collaboration with USFS and other institutions in the US being researcher in a project recently funded by NASA’s Carbon Monitoring Systems (CMS) program (22-CMS22-0022, 2023-2026, 8 institutions, total funding $1M USD). Last year I presented two proposals; one to the Spanish national plan for research projects and another one to the researchers’ consolidation call of the Spanish research agency. Both proposals were funded (PID2022-140104OA-I00 and CNS2023-144923); the first received 125K € and a pre-doctoral grant and the second received 142K€. In addition, I lead as PI an international joint venture agreement project between US Forest Service and UVa funded with $85K. As a result of my research, I generated maps of forest attributes for an area of 66000km2 that are available in public repositories. I have demonstrated experience in scientific research communication with more than 20 talks in scientific-technical meetings. My indicators of scientific production (based on web of science) include: 38 publications, 28 in the Core Collection, 468 citations, 371 citing articles and an average of 18.6 citations per item. I have supervised one PhD Thesis (Dr Pitshu Molumba Mukadi, defense April 24th 2023, grade: outstanding)