Hjalmar Laudon has a background in physical geography and his research focuses on forest lakes and water courses. He investigates how water is transported and changed on its way from snow and rain to stream water. Results from his research make it possible to better understand and reduce the negative effects of forestry, mining, airborne pollutants and climate change on water quality.
Tomas Lundmark: The role of forests in climate politics
Tomas Lundmark has for many years been the head of SLU’s field-based research stations. Through this capacity his research has ranged from studying threatened lichens to develoing ways to maximize forest growth. In recent years he has also been involved in multidisciplinary research, covering issues such as the role of forestry in climate mitigation.
Ewa Julia Mellerowicz: Trees for our children
The research area that fascinates Ewa Mellerowicz is wood formation, especially the formation of secondary walls, where most of the trees’ biomass is. She is now trying to understand the role of different polymers in the wood cell wall and to manipulate the structure of xylan, which is the main hemicellulosic wood component. The goal is to improve lignocellulose for industrial purposes, be it for energy, as a source of raw materials for chemical synthesis, or for natural fibers.
Annika Nordin: Kväve styr skogens markvegetation
Annika Nordin är jägmästare och forskar om hur kvävetillgången styr vegetationsdynamiken i boreala ekosystem. Skogsgödsling och kvävenedfall ökar tillgången på kväve, vilket kan gynna olika svampsjukdomar på bärris. Generellt ger ökad kvävetillgång en skog fattigare på bärris, samtidigt som gräs och örter kan breda ut sig.
Anders Roos: Feeling for wood
Anders Roos´ research has dealt with economic aspects on forest ownership and bio-energy markets as well as strategies in the saw mill industry. During the most recent years his main interest has been in innovations and customer preferences in the sawmilling and wood industries. Product development can profit considerably from knowledge about the specific properties that consumers associate with wood and about the qualities they value in wood products.
Jens Peter Skovsgaard: A new future for forests and silviculture in Sweden
Jens Peter Skovsgaard is a scientist in the field of silviculture. His research addresses how forests and silviculture can be adapted to climate change. This concerns for example the design and testing of new silvicultural practices for birch, noble hardwoods and mixed forest types. His objectives are to improve wood quality and economic return while simultaneously enhancing the biodiversity and recreational value of the forest.
Nasko Terziev: Developing technology for better wood products
Nasko Terziev is a wood technologist from Bulgaria who has been at SLU since 1993. He studies how to dry, impregnate and treat wood for long term and high-quality wood products. For example, poisonous preservatives with arsenic can be replaced by environmentally friendly methods, e.g. heat, citrus extractives or oils. Nasko does not only work with domestic wood species but also with exotic ones from the tropics.
Jun Yu: Development of Spatio-Temporal Models with Real Applications
Jun Yus’ research concern stochastic modeling and statistical analysis of spatio-temporal data. He has been involved in numerous research projects with applications ranging from forestry, aquaculture, environmental monitoring, ecology and population biology, to remote sensing, economics and biomedical engineering.
Lars Östlund: A forest is living history
Lars Östlund is a forest historian and does interdisciplinary research at the interfaces of ecology, archaeology and history in order to decipher the relationship between people and forests over time. By using historical records such as forest maps and farmers diaries as well as natural archives, he has studied how the northern boreal forests in Scandinavia and the northern pine forests in North America have developed and been used by people over time.
Brief introduction of the professors that were installed in Uppsala on March 19, 2010, and their lectures that were held on March 18-19.
Örjan Carlborg: One step ahead on the path towards the genetics of tomorrow
Örjan Carlborg’s area of research is computational genetics. He uses a combination of genetics, statistics and computer science to study the enormous amount of data that is collected in studies of the genome of various organisms. Today he leads an inter-disciplinary research program developing analytical methods for studies on how genes and environmental factors together regulate traits that are important in areas such as food production and medicine.
Pekka Huhtanen: Reducing environmental emissions from milk production
Pekka Huhtanens research has focused on forage utilization with special emphasis on digestion and passage kinetics of fibre, protein metabolism in ruminants, feed evaluation, feed intake and modeling.
Patrice Humblot: Cattle fertility; from clinics to ”cowmics”
Patrice Humblot´s area of research concerns animal breeding and artificial insemination. A special interest is genetic aspects of fertility, such as ways to achieve genetic progress without losing genetic variability in a breed, and the use of reproductive biotechnology. As a scientific director at the National Union of French AI and Breeding Companies he has had extensive collaborations with research groups both in France and in other countries around the world.
Thomas Håkansson: Myth, history and sustainable agriculture in Africa
Thomas Håkansson’s current research concerns the relationship between the distribution of economic resources, power and land use in historical and contemporary contexts. His recent work has focused on the political ecology of regional interaction and intensive cultivation in pre-colonial and colonial Tanzania. He is currently undertaking a global comparative project on the causes of the emergence and maintenance of intensive cultivation in non-industrial societies.
Anders Johannisson: Cellular functions in animals
Anders Johannisson is a technical biologist. He examines the functions of animal cells, studies how to measure these, and assesses the consequences that alterations in cell functions can have. He has, for example, measured the concentrations of certain cytokines which are messengers used for cellular communication in the context of infections and inflammations. Anders Johannisson has also examined various measures of sperm cell quality in order to make insemination of farm animals as efficient as possible.
Andrzej Madej: Significance of the endogenous hormones
Andrzej Madej’s research is focused on the endocrine regulation of physiological processes in domestic animals and particularly on hormones involved in reproduction and stress-related reactions. He investigates hormonal variables responsible for animals’ well-being and assesses the risks/benefits of naturally occurring oestrogen-like compounds called phytoestrogens that are found in the plants that are ingested by animals.
Kjell Martinsson: Does the forage fill the cow’s stomach?
Kjell Martinsson´s research has focused on feeding and utilization of forage and other locally-produced feeds used in dairy and beef production. Important questions have been the effect of forage crop, cutting time and ensilage quality on voluntary feed intake and animal production. The main objectives of the research conducted have been to achieve a competitive and sustainable Nordic agriculture and a safe supply of locally-produced food for human consumption.
John Stenström: Bioprophylaxis – biological methods for environmental protection
John Stenström is an agronomist and microbiologist specialized in remediation of soils contaminated by organic pollutants. Pesticides used at farms can pollute surface- and ground waters, but most pesticides can rapidly be degraded by special bacteria or by enzymes from fungi. The goal is to use this bioprophylactic method concurrent with the spraying of the pesticide.
Martin Weih: Increased resource use efficiency in future crops
Martin Weih tries to identify crop characteristics that are associated with increased nutrient and water use efficiency, and the genetic basis of these production traits. He is mainly working with perennial energy crops grown on agricultural land (Salix, Jatropha curcas) and cereals (barley, wheat). The interaction between root mycorrhizal colonisation and leaf herbivore resistance in Salix is another research interest, as well as the effects of agriculture on the environment.
Ivar Vågsholm: Food safety research and risk analysis
The research interest of Ivar Vågsholm concerns food safety along the food chain – to ensure that the food remains safe to eat with respect to zoonoses. He has contributed to several disease control programs both within the EU and Sweden. Moreover, he has participated in the Scientific Expert Committees of the European Commission and the European Food Safety Agency.