Abdollahi named committee chair of forestry association

Southern University’s Dr. Kamran Abdollahi has been selected as the National Committee Chair to the National Association of University Forest Resources Programs for 2013. Abdollahi is a professor and chair of SU’s Urban Forestry Program.

The National Association of University Forest Resources Programs (NAUFRP) represents 69 of the country’s most prestigious universities and their respective scientists, educators and extension specialists.

NAUFRP’s purpose is to advance the health, productivity, and sustainability of America’s forests by providing university-based natural resource education, research, science, extension and international programs.

Abdollahi was instrumental in Southern receiving a $120,000 federal grant to help operate the Urban Forestry training program and to use as startup funding for the development of an outdoor learning laboratory on the campus. The learning laboratory will help students seeking bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees study, among other things, which trees are suitable for different environments and protections against diseases that threaten vegetation.

Chancellor James Llorens said the reserve, near the Student Pavilion on E.C. Harrison Drive, will have walking paths and different species of trees would be identified.

Member institutions provide the most reliable, objective, and innovative research on forest ecology, management, utilization, and policy.

The members create the curricula for today and future forest stewardship needs.

Through natural resource research, member organizations create and disseminate new knowledge that spans the biological, physical, social, economic, and political sciences.

The member institutions’ programs develop future leaders, create intellectual capacity, secure financial investments, and advance cutting-edge technology to sustain forest resources.