Maria is the Acting Director of the Northern Forests Climate Hub (NFCH), and the Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science (NIACS). Each integrates information, lessons, and perspectives from the other. Maria leads staff at the NFCH and NIACS who are responsible for the development of regional ecosystem-based vulnerability assessments, natural resource-based adaptation strategies and planning documents, and decision-support tools to support of natural resource planning, management, and climate-informed decision-making.
NIACS is a core partner of the USDA Climate Hubs, contributing resources, and expertise on climate change in land management. These efforts include:
- Climate Change Response Framework, an integrated set of tools, partnerships, and actions to support climate smart conservation and forest management. Three projects cover over 133 million acres in 9 states, in partnership with over 45 organizations, including 11 National Forests. Visit, forestadapation.org, and AdaptationWorkbook.org for more information. More information can be found at: http://www.forestadaptation.org
- Climate Change Resource Center, a web-based platform providing relevant, credible information about climate change and adaptation to forest managers. NIACS helps manage the site in close collaboration with all five USFS Research Stations and the USDA Climate Hubs. More information can be found at: www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc
- Adaptive Silviculture for Climate Change, a collaborative effort to establish a series of experimental silvicultural trials across different forest ecosystem types throughout the United States. Scientists, land managers, and partners are developing trial sites as part of a multi-region study researching long-term ecosystem responses to a range of climate change adaptation actions. More information can be found at: www.forestadaptation.org/ascc
