The Rocky Mountains CESU Seminar Series takes place every spring semester. Presentations highlight the region’s best scientific talent and scholarship to help manage our public resources across social, cultural, economic, political, and environmental arenas.
2026 Online Seminar Series: Science of the Intermountain CESUs
The Rocky Mountain CESU welcomes the Colorado Plateau and Desert Southwest CESUs to the 2026 Online Seminar Series. Each of our CESUs has selected a project and researcher to underscore the diverse range of good science that is accomplished through our networks, and the impact is has on management decisions.
Visitor Use on Public Lands: Social Science Insights for Managing Increased Demand for Recreation in the American West with Hayley Johnson
Hayley Johnson, a 2025 University of Montana graduate, explores how social science can help manage growing recreation demand on public lands. Drawing on research from Yellowstone National Park, Stephen Mather Wilderness, and other sites across the American West, this presentation highlights how visitor use data - past and present - can inform more effective and equitable recreation management decisions.
Lidar-Derived Fuels Monitoring with Dr. Temuulen Sankey
Fuels monitoring data are essential to evaluate wildfire risk, plan management activities and evaluate fuel treatment effects. Terrestrial light detection and ranging (lidar) is a field-based 3D scanning technology with great potential to reduce labore-intensive field measurements and provide new depths of vegetation structure data. To facilitate the integration of terrestrial lidar into fuel monitoring programs, we developed a model and workflow that produces canopy fuel, surface fuel and terrain metrics commonly used in fire behavior and fire risk modeling.