Letter from the Department Head - Summer 2025

Greetings Friends and Supporters of NRES! 

Those who know Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences (NRES) Department Head Jeremy James were probably not surprised when he was asked to step in as interim dean for the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences (CAFES).  

James has served as department head for NRES for the past five years. His leadership helped our department grow in student and faculty numbers, brought opportunities to the entire department through a $4.2 million CAL FIRE workforce education grant, helped us develop shared governance by creating faculty leads for each of our four majors, and has demonstrated what it is to be a “servant leader.”  

James resumed his position as head of the NRES Department this summer with the arrival of the new CAFES Dean Brian Horgan. 

I was honored to be asked to serve as interim department head at the start of winter quarter 2025. This great position provided me the opportunity to work closely with faculty and staff colleagues, who are awesome and so great at their jobs. I am thankful every day for the opportunity to get to work with these talented people whose mission is to support the success and flourishing of our nearly 850 NRES students through practical and applied Learn by Doing experiences in the classroom, in the field, in computer labs and in analytical labs. 

I write to affirm to you that the NRES Department is a fantastic place for students to engage with faculty whose expertise incudes geospatial science, remote sensing, prescribed fire, fuel treatments, agroecology, soil health, forest carbon management, climate change law and political ecology. We are a diverse and growing department. I am thrilled to tell you we recently hired Yu Cao, Ph.D., an expert in environmental justice and sustainable development. Stay tuned for a more detailed introduction to Cao in our fall newsletter. 

I am excited to share in this newsletter articles you can read about the transformational Bryant Low Analytical Lab Endowment, some of our 2025 outstanding students, the impactful CAFES Experimental Farm, a forest and fire sciences alumnus with a job involving fire, flying and jumping, as well as some important department highlights and news. [include hyperlinks to each of these stories] 

As my time as interim department head ends, I am so grateful for the support of our great staff, faculty, students, advisory council, industry partners and CAFES. Being a part of this department and this university is a gift and blessing. 

Lastly, we are in the process of performing searches for faculty positions in forest operations, hydrology and watershed management, and wildland urban interface fire science. We hope to have them filled in time for fall 2026. Please share these positions widely in your networks. 

Thanks for your support of the NRES Department! 

Gratefully and sincerely,

Chip Appel

Interim Department Head
Professor of Environmental Soil Chemistry

 

Read more stories in the Summer 2025 Newsletter