Audrey L. Mayer
Assistant Professor of Ecology and Environmental Policy
Ph.D., University of Tennessee, 2000
Department of Social Sciences and School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science
Office Location (as of January 2009): 226 Academic Office Bldg
(Current contact information: http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/almayer/index.htm
University of Helsinki
Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences
P.O. Box 27
00014 Helsinki FINLAND
Box: Environmental Policy Graduate Program
Audrey is currently a researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She will join the Michigan Tech faculty in January 2009, in a joint appointment with the Department of Social Sciences and the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science. She will be a member of the Environmental Policy Program (http link).
Audrey’s projects fit broadly under the theme of multidisciplinary sustainability research, which means the simultaneous consideration of ecological, sociological, and economic dynamics of managing systems in a sustainable manner.
One project is the development and application of sustainability indices to dynamic socioecological systems. This research includes both temporal and spatial indices, and how well they can be applied to systems at many different scales. She has also developed ecosystem assessment protocols that incorporate human stressor variables.
Another project includes economic incentive policies for the conservation of ecosystem services. These include biodiversity conservation programs for privately owned forests, and economic incentives for stormwater mitigation of impervious surfaces in urban watersheds.
A third project focuses on the ecological impact of international trade of natural resources. One example of this is her work in Finland, addressing the potential impacts on the Finnish forest industry and forest ecosystems from wood trade with Russia and other countries.
Starting in Fall 2008, Audrey will be looking for future graduate students (both M.S. students in Environmental Policy, and M.S. and Ph.D. students in the SFRES programs) to work with her on these and other sustainability-related projects. Please contact her if these areas are of interest to you!