B.A., M.A., Ph.D. - University of Colorado

Geography

RESEARCH: Biogeography; disturbance ecology; fire history; human land use; climate variability and change; conservation; forest ecosystems of the American West and southern South America

CLASSES: Introduction to Geography, Cultural Geography, Geographic Information Science

Dr. Sibold is a geographer with research focused on elucidating the natural and anthropogenic drivers of forest ecosystem dynamics and change, with the goal of aiding forest ecosystem management, restoration and conservation. More specifically, he is interested in the influences of physical landscapes, biological characteristics, climate variability, and human land-use history on spatiotemporal patterns of fire and insect outbreaks and resulting forest landscape characteristics. His research is centered in the temperate forest ecosystems of the western U.S., and south-central Chile and spans spatial scales from forest stands and landscapes to mountain ranges and regions, and temporal scales from interannual to multimillennial. In his research he uses a combination of dendroecological (tree ring), Geographic Information System (GIS), and spatial analysis techniques. Current research projects include fire-insect interactions in the Colorado Rockies, fire history in the Great Basin, and fire history and regeneration in the Valdivian temperate rainforests of Chile. Dr. Sibold's research has been published in Ecological Applications, Journal of Biogeography, Canadian Journal of Forest Research, and Landscape Ecology.