FOReST Research Group

I’m interested in understanding urban trees and the critical roles they play in cities around the world. The trees that comprise urban forests face considerable abiotic and biotic stress, but help to make cities liveable, providing residents with healthy, sustainable, and desirable places to live and work. To that end, I research the growth, function, management, and ecosystem services of trees in urban environments. I also lead the ‘New Zealand Urban Forest Initiative’, which connects researchers and urban forest stakeholders, such that new research can be used to inform best practices in urban forest management in New Zealand.

I also study the spatial and temporal dynamics of New Zealand’s indigenous forests and exotic forest plantations using a range of quantitative techniques. I work extensively with remote sensing or earth observation techniques, including lidar, as well as aerial and satellite imagery. In this capacity, I'm the co-Director of the ‘Forest Observation with Remote Sensing Technologies’ FOReST research group at the School of Forestry.

I use remote sensing to understand and measure forests and the natural environment. My work integrates LiDAR, UAV and satellite imagery with machine learning to map forest types, monitor forest dynamics and land cover change, and estimate key structural and biophysical variables.

My research focuses on New Zealand’s small-scale plantation forests (woodlots), with an emphasis on mapping and inventory using remote sensing. This includes classifying tree species, estimating stand age, and deriving tree and stand-level attributes to support forest management and decision-making. I am the co-director of the Forest Observation with Remote Sensing Technologies (FOReST) research group at the University of Canterbury School of Forestry, and I welcome enquiries from motivated postgraduate students who are interested in research in this area.