Dr. Ke Dong is a Senior Forest Program Officer at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) China Liaison Office. She provides senior consultation to national and regional forestry and nature resources conservation and management. She also has practical knowledge and experience on China's conservation laws, regulations and policies through past involvements in numerous projects with the China's State Forestry Administration (SFA). During her 12-month Fellowship, Ke will examine Payment for Ecological Services (PES) as a way to balance out development with conservation objectives, and she will conduct a comparative study between China and the US to evaluate increasing international practices in PES. Her objective is to provide recommendations on improving PES efforts in China, particularly in the Beijing Miyun Reservoir watershed area, which is a key supplier of about 60-70% drinking water resources to the 17 million residents in Beijing City.

Roslyn Henricks is on a 12 month fellowship offered jointly by the J.W. Gottstein Memorial Trust Fund and Forest & Wood Products Australia.  She completed a combined degree in Forestry and Visual Arts at the Australian National University in Canberra, which included a 12 month international exchange at Oregon State University School of Forestry.  Her previous employer was Green Triangle Forest Products, a plantation management company located in the key forestry region around Mount Gambier, South Australia. Her research with the WFI will investigate the relationship between the visual impacts of plantation forestry, social acceptability, plantation resource expansion, and landscape planning.

Aline Moreira is on 12 month Fellowship sponsored by American Forest Foundation. She completed her Masters in Sustainable Resource Management in the School of Forest Science and Resource Management at the Technical University in Munich, Germany. Her background is in Social Science and she challenges herself working to connect environmental and social issues. At WFI she will work with Project Learning Tree, which involves continuing research and curriculum development for "Global connections: Forests of the World." This is a guide and activity set for educators to help students gain an increased understanding and appreciation of the world forest environment, with emphasis on the human interaction with, and dependence on, those environments.

Elikia Amani is the field manager of an international organization responsible for forest resources management, called Pharmakina-Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He is also trustee board President of the non-profit group Congolese Foresters Network. Elikia is here on a 6-month fellowship program sponsored by the International Tropical Timber Organization. During his time at WFI he will undertake a comparative study of sustainable forest management practices in the Pacific Northwest. Elikia wishes to contribute to the preservation of Congolese forests through the use of modern forest management techniques. What he learns here will go towards developing sustainable forestry practices in the tropical rainforests in Eastern DR Congo.

Dr. Sue Baker works for Forestry Tasmania as a researcher investigating biodiversity and variable retention silviculture. She is on a 12-month Fellowship offered jointly by the J.W. Gottstein Memorial Trust Fund and Forest & Wood Products Australia. She has a forestry degree from the University of Melbourne, and Honours and Ph.D. degree from the School of Zoology, University of Tasmania. Her research project at WFI will be on the topic: Variable Retention Silviculture: A comparison of biodiversity research and management practices between Tasmania, Australia, and the Pacific Northwest. Variable retention is a relatively new harvesting system that aims to retain biodiversity and structural elements from the mature unharvested forest for at least one rotation, in order to preserve environmental values associated with mature and structurally complex forests.