Melissa Gearman ’18.
The graduate research of Melissa Gearman ’18 was published in the October 7 issue of the Journal of Forestry.
Her study used Maxent to map the potential probability distribution of the invasive forest pathogen oak wilt in eastern and southeastern Minnesota. Maxent is a program for modelling species distributions from presence-only species records.
Gearman worked alongside Professor Mikhail Blinnikov to conduct this research and complete her graduate thesis on the topic. “It demonstrates very well how useful GIS modeling can be in predicting spread of deadly tree diseases in our state,” Blinnikov stated.
Gearman earned a master’s in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in the spring of 2018. She works for ERM Solutions (Environmental Resources Management) as a GIS consultant.
Read the full article: https://scsu.mn/2X6KpC5
A map created by Gearman illustrating the probability of oak wilt.
