Austin Peay partners with Nevada, Reno, to host international tree ring symposium – virtually
(Posted June 3, 2020)
After the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of an annual geography conference, Austin Peay State University stepped in to host a virtual gathering of the world’s top tree ring scientists.
Austin Peay, in collaboration with the University of Nevada, Reno, hosted the Tree Ring Society’s first-ever virtual Tree Ring Symposium on May 29.
Seven people delivered presentations to 136 attendees from all over the world, including India, China and Peru.
“We’ve gotten a lot of really great feedback, and the tree ring community in attendance wants this to be a regular occurrence,” said Dr. Chris Gentry, associate professor of geography at Austin Peay and secretary of the Tree Ring Society.
Tree Ring Society members started discussing a virtual conference after the American Association of Geographers was forced to cancel its annual meeting in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We were talking about hosting an online professional conference so people could call in, share their screens,” Gentry said.
Gentry and Nevada, Reno’s Adam Csank moderated the conference, which included presenters from the University of British Columbia; the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Louisiana State University; the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; the University of Minnesota; and the University of Toronto – Mississauga.
The shared presentations they had prepared for the annual meeting.
Topics included worldviews on wildfire, evaluation of the whitebark pine tree in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem and emerging technologies in dendrochronology.
Dendrochronology is the study of tree ring growth to interpret and date past events such as climate trends. Tree ring scientists also are called dendrochronologists.
To learn more
- For more about the APSU Department of Geosciences, visit apsu.edu/geosciences.
- For more about the Tree Ring Society, go to www.treeringsociety.org.
News Feed
View All News
Jody Alberd, a Navy veteran and assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Technology, has earned his first National Science Foundation grant as principal investigator to study how student veterans develop their engineering identity during senior capstone design projects.
Read More
Dr. John McConnell, dean of the Eriksson College of Education, has been named an Impact Academy fellow through the national nonprofit Deans for Impact, joining a cohort of 24 leaders committed to strengthening educator preparation across the country.
Read More
Austin Peay State University hosted some of Tennessee's brightest high school students this summer for the Governor's School for Computational Physics, a four-week residential program now in its 18th year that immerses rising seniors in physics, mathematics, and computational problem-solving.
Read More