Outreach

2026 OSU College of Forestry Starker Lecture Series: A century of research forest discoveries.

In the Starker Lecture on March 11 Fred Swanson will address the topic “What have we learned from decades of forest research?”, drawing mainly on the long history of inquiry at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest.  The talk will feature perspectives about how the diverse processes of learning have evolved over the decades and will be accompanied by exhibits of art and three dozen books for a public readership that draw creative inspiration from the Forest and from science.  The art will be exhibited March 9 to April 17.

"What have we learned from decades of forest research?"
presented by Fred Swanson, Research Geologist (retired) US Forest Service and Emeritus Faculty
March 11, 2026 | 4:00 pm-5:00 pm
Peavy Forest Science Center (PFSC) 117 on the Corvallis campus - open to the public, registration needed for Zoom webinar option only

The talk will be followed by a reception in the 2nd floor Richardson Hall knuckle and Grove Gallery, where the art and books are displayed.  A recording of the talk will be available at beav.es/starker-lectures.

Andrews Forest Monthly Meeting: Friday, April 4,  9-11 AM

Presentations:

• “Firelines, points, and polygons: Lookout Fire data update” presented by Emily Conklin, Postdoctoral Scholar, Forest Ecosystems and Society, OSU.
• “Fireline Fellows” updates and works presented by the Fireline Fellows. https://prax.oregonstate.edu/spring-creek-projects/fireline-fellows. Fireline Fellows will be in attendance in person. Each will share a little about their work, about how their project ideas are developing, and about their areas of interest.

After our presentations we will move into our community meeting, which includes updates on graduate student activities, site, WNF, community, education, new faces, and recent publications.

Peavy 315, Oregon State University.  Contact Lina DiGregorio for zoom option.

Our meetings follow the academic year. Upcoming meetings: June 6.

Spring Creek Project Presents: Deep Time: Writing and Art from an Ancient Forest

For more than 20 years, the Spring Creek Project has been inviting creative responses to the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest through the Long-Term Ecological Reflections program. This program brings imaginative thinkers in the humanities and the written and visual arts to this ancient forest of the Blue River watershed in Oregon, where scientists have been engaged for decades in long-term study.

The Reflections project is intended to span 200 years — approximately seven generations of human lives, but only a quarter of the lifetime of the oldest red cedars in the forest. It was founded on the belief that truths reveal themselves over time and cannot be fully grasped in short corporate timespans. So we should study a place for generations — patient in drawing conclusions, humble in the presence of deep time, and open to surprise. Long-term thinking is a radical act, a corrective to the dangerous impatience of modernity. Nevertheless, we live in a time of ecological crisis where the urgent need for new ways of thinking and being sits in tension with the wisdom that evolves over generations.

Now, you’re invited to join us for a special evening celebrating creative projects from this program that are making us think in new ways about forests, our relationship to place, and the importance of long-term inquiry. Four featured presenters (detailed below) will share their work from the Andrews Forest and offer reflections that branch out far beyond the place where they originated.

Happy Hour

All are invited to a pre-event happy hour from 6 to 7 p.m. It will include:

• A visual arts display
• A specially curated forest-themed book sale by Grass Roots Books
• Poetry from the Andrews Forest
• Tabling with materials about this storied place and many of the writers and artists who have visited
• Beer, wine and snacks available for purchase

Meet the Presenters

Riley Yuan is a Chinese-American writer and photographer, a Fireline Fellow at the Andrews Forest, and currently one of six inaugural Murrow Fellows placed in local newsrooms around Washington state. He covers an environmental beat for The Chinook Observer throughout Pacific County. Yuan turns to journalism after spending two seasons on hotshot crews with the U.S. Forest Service.

Nancy Floyd uses photography, video, and mixed-media to address the ways in which lens-based media can connect deeply with experience and memory. In 2022 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to begin working on a wide-ranging exploration of trees in Oregon and the people who care for, use, and study them. That summer, she began working on a long-term project following scientists and their crews in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest. The first three years of work are collected in For the Love of Trees, currently showing at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art in Salem, Oregon.

Tom Montgomery Fate was a writer-in-residence at the H.J. Andrews Forest in the fall of 2017, where he worked on The Long Way Home, a book of essays (published in 2022). He is the author of five other books of creative nonfiction, including Cabin Fever, a nature memoir, and Steady and Trembling, a spiritual memoir. A regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune, his essays have been widely published in national journals, and have often aired on NPR and Chicago Public Radio.

Claire Giordano is an environmental artist, writer, and educator creatively exploring the interwoven patterns of people, place, and climate change. She has completed place-based residencies and fellowships around the world, including at the Andrews Forest. While there, she immersed herself in the forest and spent hours painting outside every day, even in incessant rain.

January 8

Doors open at 6 p.m. for happy hour

Event begins at 7 p.m.

Toomey Lobby, PRAx (470 SW 15th St)

Free and open to all

Author Event with M.L. (Peg) Herring. Tuesday, December 3, 5:30 PM. Corvallis-Benton County Library Main Meeting Room.  “Born of Fire and Rain” explores the heights and depths of the coastal Douglas-fir region. Peg shares, "Needless to say, this book could not have been written without the work of the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest. This is where the scientific study of coastal Douglas-fir forests first took root. For more than 75 years, researchers here have questioned the forest, and themselves, and listened for new knowledge about what it means to be a forest. As a result, this forest is one of the most studied ecosystems in the world. And it continues to offer wonder and surprise.”

Andrews Forest Monthly Meeting: Friday, October 4,  9-11 AM

Presentations:

• Ore Fire Update and Site Access. Presented by Mark Schulze and Brooke Penaluna.
• Update on the hypothesis paper in response to the Lookout Fire. Presented by Dana Warren and Matthew Betts.
• Introducing the Fireline Fellows! Presented by Joy Jensen and Carly Lettero with PRAx, the Spring Creek Project, and the Center for the Humanities. 

After our presentations, at 10 AM, we will move into our community meeting, which includes updates on graduate student activities, site, WNF, community, education, new faces, and recent publications.

PFSC 315. Contact Lina DiGregorio for Zoom link.

Our meetings follow the academic year. Upcoming meetings: Nov 1 (Peavy 315), Dec 6 (FSL Room 20), Jan 10 (Peavy 315), Feb 7, Mar 7, April 4, May 2, June 6.