Project recruitments

Dr. Nate McDowell, senior scientist 

Nate was employed as a part-time senior scientist in November 2012 for a period of 36 months. His main tasks were related to on-field trace gas is otope technology and mortality in forest ecosystems. In particular, the focus was on publishing in the field of mortality in forest ecosystems, as support to the purchase of on-field trace gas isotope technology and additional research tasks related to drought stress. His contribution during project was mainly to RID aim: Net Ecosystem Carbon Exchange in time and space.
His important scientific contribution was also in setting up and adapting the experiment of Dr. Ines Štraus in drought effect-related experiments on beech. In addition, he participated in purchasing, adapting, installing and running the on-field trace gas isotope technology. Nate McDowell prepared an invited lecture, Accelerating Forest Mortality, for the EUFORIA conference.

Dr. Tanja Mrak, microcopy specialist

Tanja was employed as a full-time specialised postdoc for microscopy techniques and micro-cryotomy of wood samples. Her main activities were the participation in the tender for purchase of microscopes and a laser dissecting microscope, specifically:“Motorised upright research microscope”, “Motorised dissection microscope” and “Motorised invert microscope with laser microdissection system”. She also prepared SOPs for all units and exchanged knowledge through all activities within WP2, in particular secondments, workshops and conferences. She also cooperated in internal (Slovenian Forestry Institute) research tasks, several tasks provided for the market, as well as in preparation of SFI international project proposals.

Tanja Mrak co-authored the Atlas of Woody Plant Roots (Mrak, Gričar 2016) and a recent paper: Influence of soil temperature on growth traits of European beech seedlings (Štraus, Mrak et al. 2014).

Dr. Saša Zavadlav, stable isotope specialist

Saša was employed as a full-time postdoctoral researcher to provide research and technical assistance in the Laboratory for Stable Isotopes. She was in charge of day-to-day operation and maintenance of the EA-IRMS analysing system, implementation of stable isotope analytical techniques, and preparation of samples for stable isotope analysis. She participated in several secondments and training to improve knowledge and skills on isotope ratio mass spectrometry techniques, and prepared several SOPs related to stable isotope analysis. Additionally, she participated in workshops as a lecturer covering the stable isotope research field. She now continues her work in the field of stable isotope biogeochemistry, focusing her research interests on studying plant and soil response to changing environmental conditions.

Saša co-authored a review paper: Allocate carbon for a reason: priorities are reflected in the 13C/12C ratios of plant lipids synthesised via three independent biosynthetic pathways (Zhou, Zavadlav, S. et al. 2015).

Prof. Dr. Ivan Kreft, IP manager

Ivan was involved in the construction of the draft of intellectual property (IP) strategy of SFI, which will be available as a possible sample for similar strategy documents for other forestry institutions in southeastern Europe. Ivan joined workshops in Nitra and Stara Lesna (Slovakia), Portorož (Slovenia), Nagoya (Japan), Luxemburg, and Thimpu (Bhutan), where he presented EUFORINNO activities. His presentations included discussion of the forest-agriculture interface in Europe and Asia, with special attention to buckwheat grown in oak tan-bark coppice after cutting, forest as a shelter for propagation of pollinators, and forest as protection of water sources and crop fields from strong winds. In December 2015 he organised a seminar on the protection of IP at SFI.

Tina Drolc, tecnical editor of Publishing centre Silva Slovenica

Tina played an important role in the editorial tasks and procedures aimed at raising the scientific excellence of SFI through the Silva Slovenica Publishing Centre. As technical editor, she was involved in the development of a modern publishing system that resulted in a number of high quality publications. She also worked on the introduction of the open access repository SciVie and as editor of EUFORINNO web pages. As a public relations expert she covered various aspects of project dissemination activities, such as organisation of project events like EUFORIA. She contributed to the preparation of the LIFEGENMON dissemination work package. Tina was succeeded by postdoc Dr. Peter Železnik for the last four months of the project.

Dr. Peter Železnik, tecnical editor of Silva Slovenica

Peter succeeded Tina Drolc for the last four months of the project life. He continued the planned activities such as publishing EUFORINNO Newsletters and different monographs. During his term two of the most esteemed monographs of Silva Slovenica were published (Atlas of Woody Plant Roots and a review of Quercus genetic research). He also became involved in the IUFRO section on publishing in forestry, which further improved the international reputation of the publishing centre. In autumn 2015, he organized a 30-hour course on desktop publishing and a workshop on general legal and technical aspects of publishing in cooperation with experts of the Slovenian National Library. The application for DOI was processed and finished during his appointment. He succeeded in bringing the monograph Virgin Forest to a major Slovenian bookseller and thus to the widest possible audience.

 

Irena Rebov

Irena Rebov was employed through the EUFORINNO project as the librarian tasked with the digitalisation and processing of studies and research reports in SciVie. She also significantly contributed to the SciVie repository by maintaining the repository, digitalising research reports and entering information in the database. She was also involved in the initial promotion of the SciVie repository among interested institutions and researchers, with the main goal of promoting the benefits of publishing articles in the repository.