Keynote Speaker: Dr. Maureen H. McDonough

Dr. Maureen H. McDonough is a full professor and extension specialist in the Department of Forestry at Michigan State University with adjunct appointments in the Department of Sociology and the Michigan State Museum. 

She received her doctoral degree in Forestry in 1980 from the College of Forest Resources at the University of Washington with a disciplinary emphasis in sociology.  She has been at Michigan State for 28 years. Her research and extension interests include community-driven forestry and increasing the diversity of voices in natural resource decision making. She has worked on community forestry projects in Thailand, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, Taiwan, Jamaica and China as well as in urban and rural communities in the U.S. including Detroit and Gogebic County in Michigan. She has also worked extensively on social indicators of sustainable forestry including projects linking communities to the Montreal Process and projects assisting communities in developing their own local level criteria and indicators.

She is currently leading the effort to develop metrics for the new Montreal Process indicator on importance of forests to people.In the area of increasing the diversity of voices in natural resources decision making, Dr. McDonough has developed a model for the US Forest Service to use in reaching out to underrepresented groups, evaluated the role of community collaboration in stewardship contracting for the USDA Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management and identified barriers to increased public participation in the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR).