The Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management and Faculty of Engineering manage the Forest Engineering Program at the University of New Brunswick, which grants Bachelors, Masters and PhD degrees. The FE program group is dedicated to excellence in student learning and is known for its extensive integration of problem-based learning and outcomes-based assessment. It is housed at UNB's Fredericton campus in the beautiful St. John River Valley, on Canada's east coast.
Our research and scholarship is focussed on:
Integrated forest management and operations planning - We are active in the area of forest or stand level planning. Projects range from mathematical optimization of forest level planning to creating models of how forest engineers solve water crossing planning problems. Sample publications include:
Richards, E. W. 1 and E. A. Gunn (2000) A model and tabu search method to optimize stand harvest and road construction schedules. Forest Science 46(2):188-203.
Robak, E.W. 1996. " IFMS Designs for North American Forest Product Companies", Proc. Planning and Implementing Forest Operations to Achieve Sustainable Forests. Joint Mtg. COFE/IUFRO, Marquette, Mich. USDA Gen. Tech. Rep. NC-186.
International Journal of Forest Engineering - UNB has published the IJFE since its inception in 1989.
Scholarship of Education - We write about innovations in professional education methods, ranging from fundamental work on identifying learning outcomes for undergraduate programs to development of Web software to assess professional problem-solving. Some sample publications include:
Zundel, P E, T D Needham, E W Richards, J A Kershaw, D A Daugharty and E W Robak. 2000. Fostering Competency with Outcomes Based Assessment - Presented at Third Biennial Conf. on Univ. Ed. in Nat. Res. Columbia, Missouri. March 25-28, 2000.
Needham, T D and P E Zundel. 2000. Outcomes Based Education in Forestry - An Application in New Brunswick. Journal of Forestry V98 (2): 30-35.
Timber engineering and wood technology - We operate the Wood Science and Technology Centre, an accredited wood testing and research lab. Active projects include polymer impregnation of wood, wood quality, engineering properties of wood, adhesives, mechanical fasteners and analysis of structural timber systems. Sample publications include:
Chui, Y. H., Taylor, A. M. and Cooper, P. A. 2001. Effects of high temperature drying on bending strength of red pine poles. Forest Products Journal. 51(7/8): 47-50
Smith, I., Craft, S. and Quenneville, P. 2001. Design capacities of joints with laterally loaded nails. Canadian J. of Civ. Eng., 28(2):282-290
Contact information:
Dr. Ted Needham, Program Director
Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management
University of New Brunswick
P.O. Box 44555
Fredericton, NB
CANADA E3B 6C2
Phone (506) 453-4501 Fax (506) 453-3838
Email: needham@unb.ca
http://www.unb.ca/forestry/undergraduate/BScFE /bscfe-fs.htm