Arroyo, Dr. Renaldo J.S.

Education:

Ph.D. Forest Resources, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS

M.S. Interdisciplinary Studies (Geography and Natural Resources Management), Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX

B.S. Forestry, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA

B.A. Literature, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA

Professional Societies:

Society of American Foresters

Xi Sigma Pi

American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing

Association for Fire Ecology

Society for Range Management

Biography:

I grew up in the Bay Area in Northern California and developed a love for the outdoors and an appreciation for nature as I grew older.

Work related experience includes seven seasons as a wildland firefighter for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Park Service (NPS), and US Forest Service (USFS). I was classified as, and worked as, a forestry and range technician in California, Colorado, and Wyoming (and was on assignment in Utah and Arizona). Other duties included cache inventory, clerical duties, timber marking, GPS surveying, wildlife tracking, and fuels management. The fuels management work included various restoration projects, which were particularly interesting to me and rewarding. Examples of this work included eucalyptus removal on the California coast, tamarisk removal and wetland restoration in central California, and working with private landowners on various prescribed fires in the Texas panhandle on Conservation Reserve Program (CPR) lands. I have also worked on prescribed fires in northern California.

My undergraduate forestry degree at Humboldt State focused on wildland fire management. Once I began my master’s at Texas Tech, my focus shifted to range and GIS. The research emphasis for my Ph.D. degree program was remote sensing and forest inventory focusing on the feasibility of using Landsat data to estimate timber volume in central Mississippi. I also collaborated with the Mississippi Forestry Commission (MFC) and the Mississippi Institute for Forest Inventory (MIFI) on its state-wide operational inventory. MIFI inventories one-fifth of the state each year on a rotating basis. Inventory results are used to recruit forest industry to the state and ensure sustainable forest resources through appropriate practices and policies. I processed Landsat data and created the MIFI sampling frame for the 2013 inventory.