Dr. Sheng-I Yang

Dr. Sheng-I Yang's research focuses on modeling forest growth, diversity, structure, and function for planted and natural forests in order to advance forest science and inform sustainable forest management decisions. He develops and improves quantitative methods at the individual tree, stand, and system levels. He has worked on multiple research projects for a variety of forest types, including southern pine monocultures as well as mixed-species forests in temperate and pantropical regions (e.g., Caribbean). Particularly, he is interested in (1) estimating stand carrying capacity, (2) modeling stem taper and bark thickness, (3) characterizing tree allometric relationships and growth, (4) assessing forest carbon, and (5) improving forest inventory and model projections. In addition to research, he is devoted to forest biometrics, applied statistics, and geospatial education. Dr. Yang is a faculty member in the UGA Plantation Management Research Cooperative (PMRC) and a faculty fellow at the UGA Institute of Artificial Intelligence (IAI). Dr. Yang currently serves as a Coordinator of 4.01.03 Instruments and Methods in Forest Mensuration in the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) and as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Forestry and Forest Ecosystems.

Current Research Projects:

- Developing quantitative methodology for predicting tree growth and stand carrying capacity for pantropical island forests. Funded by USDA Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) 

- Evaluating and proposing a site productivity estimation methodology for Caribbean forests. Funded by USDA Forest Service, Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA)

- Integrating SAE methods with stand-level forest inventory and growth projection for southern pine plantations. Funded by NCASI Foundation, USDA Forest Service and Center for Advanced Forestry Systems

- Evaluating the differences of growth and yield projections between the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) and commonly-used models for pine plantations in the southeastern U.S. Funded by NCASI Foundation