Forest Service Station: Southern Research Station

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service Scientist

My favorite science experience was studying vegetation development on lava flows in Hawaii. It was fascinating to see how plants get started on bare rock, but the coolest thing was just to stand among the tree ferns and rare native birds in fully developed rainforest on thousand-year-old lava.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I like being a fire scientist because big fires are almost always exciting.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I like being a scientist because I enjoy working with natural systems and attempting to understand how they function. I am able to communicate this information to the land managers who (it is hoped) will do a better job of caring for the land.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

I like being a scientist because I am excited about the natural world and want to help conserve it for future generations to enjoy.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I like being a scientist because I enjoy the art of discovery. I became interested in natural resources when I was a young child, traveling and camping with my family.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service Scientist

When I was a senior in high school, we took a biology field trip to a salt water marsh on the coast of Virginia. As part of this trip, we walked through the marsh in mud up to our knees'"but this was really cool because we got to see up close all of the plants and animals that lived there, like little crabs that rushed around in front of us like kids running around here and there on a playground. This was one of the first times I realized that all of nature (including mud!) has interesting and fun things in it that are important to all of us. Now I spend a lot of time in all kinds of natural places and continue to be amazed by the beauty and wonder of our natural world!

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

I like being a scientist because doing research is fun. Sometimes I get to go to interesting places to discover new things about the environment. I also like to tell others what I have discovered, and we get to share and discuss our ideas.

Forest Service Station: Pacific Southwest Research Station

I like being a scientist because I never get tired of asking questions and trying to answer them. The questions I like to answer are things like, 'Why do plants and animals live where they do?' and 'How do human activities and land management decisions affect animals living in the wild?' Plus, I get to run around in the woods and the scrub and wear jeans all the time!

Forest Service Station: Northern Research Station

I like being a scientist because it is exciting to be involved in research that could help solve climate change, which is a global problem. It is quite a thrill to have the opportunity to make a difference.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

I like being a scientist because I get to play detective. I search for answers to avalanche problems faced by people who work and play in the mountains. I became interested in avalanches in college while I was working as a ski patroller. Being an avalanche scientist combined my love of skiing, mountains, snow, and science.

Forest Service Station: Southern Research Station

One of the great joys I receive from being a scientist has been seeing both of my children pursue science degrees in college. This is a photograph of me with my daughter Rosalina.

Contact: mbowker@fs.fed.us

I spent 15 years studying invasive species, particularly those that cause tree diseases. Now I am working to make sure that the best available science is used to prevent new insect pests and diseases from getting spread around the world. I love to travel, and this mission has taken me to 10 different countries. Scientists everywhere think this work is important, but other authorities have to balance our concerns about pests with the benefits of free trade. There are still many important questions that need answers.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I like being a scientist because it allows me to follow my passion of learning how nature works, and how we interact with nature. I became interested in natural resources in high school. I had a great biology and science teacher who helped me guide my interests toward where I am today. It always seemed that there was someone to encourage me when I needed it.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I like being a scientist because it is challenging to figure out how to solve a problem or design the right experiment. It is also challenging to gather good data and to write about the study so that it is interesting to others. I also like being a scientist because I have a chance to do something useful.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

In the 1980s, I created a special chemical in a chemistry lab. This was a powerful pheromone that is a very strong attractant for a particular species of beetle. This beetle causes severe damage to logs that will be cut into lumber. Tiny amounts of the pheromone that I made were formulated into lures, and the lures were placed in funnel traps similar to the one you see in this photo. One month later, we inspected the traps, which we had placed at lumber mills. Many traps contained more than 25,000 beetles and virtually no other insects. At one mill, we caught over 12 million beetles in 1 year. Here was science in action! It was truly amazing that the chemical, made in the sterile environment of a laboratory, could cause such a strong effect in the field. This photo was taken in China, where I was studying the pine shoot beetle. I am the person on the left.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I like being a scientist because I am curious about nature and I like to ask questions. It's great to have a job that pays me to find out how things happen. As a fire scientist, I can explore my lifelong interest in fire. I use my understanding of how fires burn to help solve problems with fire in wildlands. Solving problems with wildland fire helps people to find ways to live in harmony with fire.

Contact: jcohen@fs.fed.us

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I like being a scientist because I get to exercise my curiosity and discover things that might help make the world a better place.

Contact: dcole@fs.fed.us

Forest Service Station: Southern Research Station

I like my work and working for the Forest Service very much. My work as a scientist involves studying how people relate to the natural world and what they like to do for outdoor recreation. The science I produce is used at the highest levels of government to aid in deciding how to manage our public lands.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

I like being a scientist because I get to discover new things about the natural environment.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

My favorite science experience is working outdoors to set up and run my experiments so that I can discover new facts about trees and forest insects.

Forest Service Station: Southern Research Station

As a researcher, I can pursue my own scientific curiosity. I can have an idea and then design an experiment to test its validity. I find it highly gratifying to see my research benefit Society. A highlight of my scientific career was the acceptance of my research as the basis of an international rule to stop the introduction of invasive pests on wood packing material such as pallets.

Forest Service Station: Northern Research Station

I like being a scientist because I like learning new things and sharing them with people who can use them.

Forest Service Station: Southern Research Station

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service Scientist

My favorite science experience was working with my son Peter to compare flight times and distances of five different paper airplane designs. We made 3 planes of each design and flew each plane 10 times. We averaged the distance covered and time in the air for the 30 flights for each design. The results showed which design flew 'best '. What a fun experiment!

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

This past winter I was collecting data in the woods. I was putting data into the computer from a weather station. When I'm in the woods, I hear all kinds of sounds, sometimes an owl, a hawk, a woodpecker, or a squirrel squawking at me to get out of their territory. I had the computer all set up, then I heard this distinctly different sound. It was not loud, but it gave me an uneasy feeling. I looked around for another person or other woodland creatures. Nothing. I continued working and then I heard the sound again. My ears told me the sound was close. I looked around and saw a lot of fallen trees downhill from me. I wondered if this large tree in front of me was about to fall. I panicked and didn't have much time to think, so I grabbed my computer and ran uphill. Not a minute later, a 20 foot piece of the tree cracked off of the top and crashed to the ground, right where I had been working. My heart was racing, but I'm glad that I relied on my senses to get out of there when I did! I am the one on the right in this photo.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I like being a scientist because it is essentially problem solving'"and in my case, the problems deal with the conservation of wildlife. Working on wildlife conservation problems can be very satisfying when their solution leads to better management of the habitats where wildlife live.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service Scientist

A group of scientists from around the world contributed research information about the forests in this special report.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I like being a scientist because I love to read, write and explore. My research is really exciting to me, and I look forward to it every day. Holding small mammals, smelling the grass, watching a prescribed fire - these are the things that make field research so much fun.  I also love to write up my research.  It's exciting when a new publication comes out and you get your pack of reprints in the mail.  As a scientist I also get to travel all around the world to talk about my research and to explore different ecosystems.  I never stop learning- and that is big fun!

Contact: plford@fs.fed.us

Forest Service Station: Southern Research Station

I greatly enjoy my work as a research scientist with the Forest Service.  As a Plant Pathologist I have been able to conduct research on disease problems that affect production in seed orchards and forest tree nurseries, as well as investigate the causes of invasive diseases that have devastating effects on trees in our natural forests.

You can email Dr. Fraedrich at sfraedrich@fs.fed.us. 

Forest Service Station: International Institute of Tropical Forestry

I like being a scientist because I have an enormous curiosity about nature, and science gives me an opportunity to be personally involved in the unraveling of its mysteries.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service Scientist

My favorite science experience was having no idea what time of the day or night it was while interviewing visitors under the 'midnight sun'in Gates of the Arctic National Park.

Forest Service Station: Northern Research Station

My favorite experience as a scientist is talking with people. As a social scientist who studies how people think about and use urban parks, I get to visit some very nice places and talk with people about what they like to do best when they spend their free-time out of doors. I hope that the information I get from them helps managers to make parks even better for people.

Forest Service Station: Pacific Southwest Research Station

I like being a scientist because it is fun to play detective and try to understand how people make economic decisions about the natural environment. I discover how people feel about the environment by asking them questions. As a scientist, I get to travel to interesting places all over the world, including Chile, Peru, Mexico, Spain, Russia, Portugal, and Ghana!

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service Scientist

My favorite experience as a scientist is solving a puzzle of why something in nature acts like it does or discovering an explanation for something I have seen many times but did not know why it happened.

Forest Service Station: Southern Research Station

My favorite science experience was playing with a chemistry set and accidentally blowing up a test tube when I was eight. I learned a lot from that experience! This photograph was taken in Hawaii.

Forest Service Station: Southern Research Station

My favorite science experience is learning how animals need plants for food and habitat and how many plants also need animals to disperse their seeds to new places.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

I like being a scientist because I am curious about what makes the world around me work the way it does. I enjoy developing instruments so that I can make careful measurements in our atmosphere. These measurements help me to solve problems. Being a scientist is a challenge, and it is very satisfying when you can help people solve problems.

Forest Service Station: Northern Research Station

My favorite science experience happened in ancient history (1975'" 1978) when I was working as a forester in the Peace Corps in Guatemala in Central America. There was a massive outbreak of pine-infesting bark beetles that killed millions of pine trees in Guatemala. It was that experience that made me want to study forest insects, and so after returning to the United States in 1978, I went to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin to study forest entomology.

Forest Service Station: Southern Research Station

I like being a scientist because I want to understand the impact of human activities on the global environment.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I like being a scientist because I get to find out new things about the world that nobody else has discovered. Usually the things I discover are very small facts, but often they turn out to be important pieces of information. I hope that the discoveries I have made about martens and other animals will help us do a better job of keeping wildlife from going extinct.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service Scientist

My favorite science experience was visiting and doing research in Iceland. You can see me here floating on a small iceberg in front of part of the Myrdalsjokull glacier in Iceland. Iceland has a variety of geological, geographical, and biological mysteries to experience and study. These include glaciers, volcanoes, geysers, waterfalls, hot springs, tectonic plates and earthquakes, Viking ruins, wild blueberries, Icelandic horses, and Icelandic sheep.

Forest Service Station: Northern Research Station

My favorite experience as a scientist is getting to understand something about how nature works. I also like to successfully develop or use a method to measure how nature works.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

I like being a scientist because I can uncover answers to complex questions. I became interested in natural resources as a child when my family spent time in a park or a forest.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I like being a scientist because I enjoy using both math and science to solve problems.

Forest Service Station: Southern Research Station

My most memorable research experience was conducting interviews with rural residents living near the Francis Marion National Forest and asking them about how urban development might change their community.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I like being a scientist because I can explore how ecosystems work and use the power of mathematics to describe the processes in ecosystems.

Forest Service Station: Northern Research Station

My favorite science experience is when the mysteries of insect biology or behavior are ultimately unraveled at the end of a study.

Forest Service Station: International Institute of Tropical Forestry

I like being a scientist because I get to follow my natural curiosity to learn how the Earth system works. My work is split between the field, the office, and the laboratory and I have a great deal of independence. I love to learn new things.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

My favorite science experience is spending my summers in the mountains, counting frogs, catching bugs, and enjoying the most beautiful 'office' in the world. This photograph was taken in the Sierra Nevada mountains, where this research was done.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service Scientist

My favorite science experience was when I flew into the base camp of Mt. McKinley in Denali National Park and Preserve. I talked with people who climb mountains about their experiences on North America's largest mountain peak.

Forest Service Station: Southern Research Station

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

I like being a scientist because of the adventure of working in wild places and the challenge of trying to understand the ecology of birds. I think it is important to protect the diversity of living things on the planet.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I like being a scientist because it's exciting discovering new things about unusual animals, and trying to understand the needs of animals so that we may help ensure their survival in the future. I became interested in natural resources when I began spending a lot of time backpacking and fly fishing in the mountains of Colorado as a young teenager.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

I like being a scientist because it gives me a chance to explore new things and use what I discover to change the way we manage the environment.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I like being a scientist because of the excitement of learning new things and the rewards of being creative. I became interested in natural resources as a young boy enjoying the out-of-doors in the Rocky Mountains.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service Scientist

I like being a scientist because I like solving puzzles about human behavior. I am interested in how much people value clean air and water, and protecting the environment for things like hiking and as homes for endangered species. People cannot buy resources like clean air in stores, so it is hard to put a price tag on them. As a scientist, I play detective to discover these values by asking people questions.

Forest Service Station: International Institute of Tropical Forestry

I like being a scientist because it brings me into contact with people who, like me, are fascinated by the complexity of nature and have an opportunity to try to figure it out. Then we can put the information to work for the benefit of people.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

My favorite science experience is watching a tree go through each season and understanding what is happening to the tree. Each season has its own unique set of changes that we all can see. There is also a whole set of changes that occur in the tree at the cell and subcellular level that correspond to these visual changes. Making the connection between the two and understanding how we better manage our trees with this knowledge has been a very rewarding experience.

Forest Service Station: Pacific Southwest Research Station

As a research forester, my curiosity about the natural world is encouraged. I am offered opportunities to explore questions for which answers are not known. My favorite experience with science is when answering one of these questions leads to an improvement in how we manage our forests, so that future generations can enjoy what we enjoy today.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

I like being a scientist because I enjoy learning how natural systems work. Also, for part of the year my office is a beautiful stream!

Forest Service Station: Pacific Southwest Research Station

My favorite science experience was seeing the results of our research used in new management programs that led to increased amphibian populations.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

My favorite science experience was not in the outdoors, but while sitting at a computer. I had just finished building a map-based computer model of how spotted owls move across the land. The model could draw land areas of different sizes and shapes. I was surprised to see that large areas of irregularly shaped land behaved like networks of smaller areas. Shape was as important as size to providing good habitat for the spotted owl. As I pondered this finding, I realized that many scientists were dismissing the importance of the size and shape of land areas for wildlife habitat. This realization has shaped my career as a scientist. Here is a picture of me handling a -year-old wolverine. I was placing radio collars on wolverines to track them as they moved across the land.

Forest Service Station: Pacific Southwest Research Station

My favorite science experience is seeing a paper finally in print or giving a presentation to a large group and sensing their interest and excitement. The process of planning and conducting research is long and painstaking. One has to be patient because results don't come quickly. However, the joy of seeing a project completed and knowing that it is valued by others is very gratifying.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

My favorite science experience occurred when I was teaching high school. I taught Earth/ environmental science and did a stream study on our campus with each class. I loved seeing the students get really excited about the bugs we were catching and getting into the data we were collecting about the health of their stream. My students always told me the stream study was one of their favorite activities of the semester.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service Scientist

My favorite science experience was the summer I spent camping with Dr. Aplet in the Colorado mountains when we were doing some research on wilderness. During the day, we collected information on the age and structure of ancient forests; while at night, we discussed science around the campfire.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service Scientist

My favorite science experiment was going out on a boat to collect little bugs that live in the water called zooplankton. We wanted to see if the bugs would eat harmful algae that was killing fish and act as a biological control. The bugs did eat the algae and experiments are still being done to see if they can be used for this purpose.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

My favorite science experience is discovering new things that help people to protect our environment and our natural resources.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

I like being a scientist because it allows me to understand, appreciate, and take an active role in protecting our beautiful natural environment.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

My favorite science experience had to be meeting Dr . Roberta Bondar who worked at the Great Lakes Forestry Centre when she was a student attending university. Dr. Roberta Bondar was the second Canadian and the first Canadian woman to go into space aboard the space shuttle Discovery. Shortly after her historic flight, she visited our Centre to give a firsthand account of her experience. It was awesome!! Here is a photo of me setting up one of the traps for the pine shoot beetle. The pine shoot beetle emerges very early in the spring so our traps had to be installed while snow was still covering the ground (and me).

Forest Service Station: Northern Research Station

I like being a scientist because it allows me to answer questions that have never been answered before.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I grew up in southern California in a big city. My first biology job took me all the way to the wilds of Alaska. That convinced me that I was on the right career path. On the first day of work, our boat was approaching a rugged shore in Princess Bay where we were to set up our bird banding station. We noticed a figure on the beach. As we got closer, we realized that it was a brown bear, standing on its back legs! It did not seem afraid of us or our boat and, in fact, was letting us know whose beach it was! We got the picture and turned around. But we returned to that beach in Princess Bay all summer long to band birds, never again seeing the bear, but always paying our respects to her by calling out, 'Hey Princess!'

Forest Service Station: Pacific Northwest Research Station

I like being a scientist because I can provide new knowledge and develop tools to help forest managers to become better stewards of the land.

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

I like being a scientist because I love learning about how different soils grow unique forest plants and fungi, and I like working on ways to continue harvesting timber without damaging the soil. The other reasons I like science are the opportunity to work with some especially gifted people, and to continue learning about the world.

Contact: ddumroese@fs.fed.us

Forest Service Station: International Institute of Tropical Forestry

I like being a scientist because I get to explore and learn about the natural world. Nature is like a bottomless treasure chest, full of surprises and mysteries. It is fun to try to unravel those mysteries. It is important for humans to find ways to use the gifts of nature without damaging the environment, and also to repair the damage that we have already caused.

Forest Service Station: Non Forest Service

I have really enjoyed all the hiking around I get to do in beautiful State parks. My favorite science experience was the time Kristen Falk, another scientist in this experiment, got chased by a turkey while we were tagging trees for an experiment. I don't think it liked her red pants!

Forest Service Station: Rocky Mountain Research Station

My favorite science experience is when I can prove a scientific hypothesis. I work in a special scientific area called commun