{"id":657,"date":"2020-01-21T17:50:20","date_gmt":"2020-01-21T17:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofforestry\/?p=657"},"modified":"2020-01-21T17:50:21","modified_gmt":"2020-01-21T17:50:21","slug":"cof-spotlight-stephen-calkins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofforestry\/2020\/01\/21\/cof-spotlight-stephen-calkins\/","title":{"rendered":"CoF Spotlight: Stephen Calkins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What are you studying?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My project is on dwarf mistletoe in western hemlock. Dwarf mistletoe is an aerial parasite of trees. I\u2019m working to quantify how it changes the structure of hemlock\u00a0crowns\u00a0and sapwood area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How did you end up studying tree diseases at Oregon State?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I learned to climb trees as an undergraduate at the University of Washington. After that, I worked as a forester and arborist. I wanted to keep climbing trees. I found Dave Shaw online and told him that I knew how to climb trees and do canopy research, so we came up with this project because he wanted to do more with dwarf mistletoe and western hemlock. Part of the project is canopy mapping, and I\u2019d done that before as well. We thought we could incorporate forest pathology into this canopy study, which isn\u2019t done very often in big trees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You\u2019ll finish up in June.\nWhat\u2019s next?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not totally sure, but something to do with forest health. I\u2019ll probably do public work. I\u2019m on the search right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What do you do now when\nyou\u2019re not studying or working on your thesis?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like to hike and go out and climb trees for fun. My goal is to get out at least once a week. I started drawing recently, which has been kind of cool. I want to get to a point where I could put a drawing in a paper I publish. I mostly draw trees and mushrooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What\u2019s the biggest tree\nyou\u2019ve climbed?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure. I have climbed a giant sequoia that was over 300 feet tall, but I\u2019m not exactly sure how high up I got. The hemlocks I study are about 50 meters tall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the scariest part of\ntree climbing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You shoot the anchor into the tree with a crossbow, and the first few times you do it, you\u2019re never sure if you\u2019ve done it right, but you just have to do it. When you get up there, you might realize that a tiny branch or a dead branch was holding all of your weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you traveled much?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I graduated from undergrad, I did a tour of almost all of the national parks in the west. I lived out of my car for three months until I ran out of money and hiked and climbed trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What trees will you climb\nnext?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to climb a redwood and a really tall\u00a0species of\u00a0Eucalyptus tree in Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s your favorite\nnational park?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grand Tetons. It\u2019s so beautiful. When I was there, I saw bears,\nmoose and a few different types of deer. Being in the mountains is crazy. It\u2019s\nvery rugged, but there are also a lot of flowers. The flowers might be my\nfavorite part of national parks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What are you studying? My project is on dwarf mistletoe in western hemlock. Dwarf mistletoe is an aerial parasite of trees. I\u2019m working to quantify how it changes the structure of hemlock\u00a0crowns\u00a0and sapwood area. How did you end up studying tree diseases at Oregon State? I learned to climb trees as an undergraduate at the… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5291,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[603042],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty-staff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofforestry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofforestry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofforestry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofforestry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofforestry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofforestry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":661,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofforestry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions\/661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofforestry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofforestry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/collegeofforestry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}