Institute for Innovative Climate Solutions

Find a climate solution. Be a climate solution.

All things climate at the University of Idaho.

The Institute for Innovative Climate Solutions (ICS) is a multidisciplinary, collaborative research program housed at the University of Idaho and supported by the Office of Research and Economic Development. We see ourselves as the epicenter of all convergent research involving climate change at the university. Our researchers,projects, and partners are united around one common goal: to mitigate and reverse climate change impacts on Earth and its inhabitants through integrated and innovative solutions.

People

Co-Director: Tara Hudiburg

Dr. Tara Hudiburg is an Associate Professor in the Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Fire Sciences at the University of Idaho. Before coming to Idaho, she completed her PhD and MS degrees in Forest Science at Oregon State University and a postdoctoral appointment in Plant Biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research investigates the impacts of climate, fire, and management on terrestrial biogeochemical cycling, particularly GHG implications. She integrates experimental and modeling methods to uncover knowledge about the biological and physical drivers controlling terrestrial carbon uptake and release. She uses knowledge gained to improve and validate process-based models and to predict potential climate and management impacts to the carbon cycle in forest and agricultural ecosystems.

Co-Director: Kristina Bartowitz

Kristina Bartowitz, PhD is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Fires Sciences at the University of Idaho. She has over a decade of experience working in western U.S. forests and agricultural lands, with expertise in climate, wildfire, and management impacts on ecosystem dynamics and carbon cycling and interests in science policy and community engagement. She received her PhD in Natural Resources from the University of Idaho, and her BS and MS from the University of Wisconsin. She currently leads ecosystem ecology and modeling projects and assessments of management impacts on ecosystem carbon and other co-benefits to determine if practices are truly climate smart.  

Associate Directors:

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