Welcome!
The primary goal of our program is to train graduate students in the methods of experimental and observational research in forest restoration ecology, through pursuit of a Master of Science degree in the Department of Biology at the University of Mississippi. 
The key conceptual focus of the program is forest restoration science that explicitly incorporates the multiple scales of ecology (from genes to ecosystems), historical ecology, and the connectivity between terrestrial and aquatic components of forest systems. Participating faculty mentors have expertise in population and conservation genetics, ecology from the population to ecosystem scales, resource management, restoration and historical ecology, and invasion biology, as well as a diversity of organisms and ecological processes in forests and aquatic systems, including nutrient cycling and biogeochemistry, terrestrial microorganisms, plants, forest vertebrates and invertebrates, and aquatic microorganisms and invertebrates.
The program is designed to provide participating students with several unique opportunities:
- Participation in a collaborative forest restoration ecology project in a local forest ecosystem. The project will experimentally test the effects of fire and thinning treatments on a diverse upland deciduous forest ecosystem in northern Mississippi, with each student monitoring the response of a different ecosystem component to restoration treatments.
- A summer internship (expenses paid) with a successful forest restoration project in the Rocky Mountain Trench region of British Columbia, Canada, supervised by officials of Canada's Ministry of Forestry and Range. There, students will participate in maintenance of restoration treatments and monitoring of biotic and abiotic responses to the treatments, will conduct a collaborative research project, and will attend guest lectures from regional forest restoration practitioners and agro-forestry professionals.
- Focused coursework, including courses in forest restoration ecology and in professional development for careers in forest restoration ecology and management.
- Meeting travel: Each student will be supported to attend at least one professional meeting, e.g. an annual meeting of the Society for Ecological Restoration.
- An annual stipend of $18,000 per year for two years.
Funding is provided by the USDA's Food and Agricultural Sciences National Needs Graduate and Postdoctoral Fellowship Grants Program.
Please address questions about the program to Dr. Jason Hoeksema: hoeksema at olemiss.edu, 662-915-1275.