William Patterson

Primary Interests

Dr. Patterson became interested in fire ecology as an undergraduate and focused his graduate degree research on fire effects, fire history studies, and the application of fire research to vegetation management. He currently teaches courses in forest ecology and measurements, fire control, and fire management. He has served as an instructor for The Nature Conservancy’s Basic and Advanced Ecological Burning Workshops and is a graduate of and instructor for the Rx90/300 Burn Boss Course. He was one of the first NPS-certified burn bosses in the Northeast. His research during the past 30 years began with fire history studies in northwest Alaska and in New England and currently involves prescribed burning experiments in North Atlantic pine-oak forests and barrens. He has taken sabbaticals as a Bullard Fellow at Harvard University and as a visiting research scientist at CSIRO, Canberra, Australia. For his work in implementing prescribed fire in New England, he received The Nature Conservancy’s President’s Stewardship Award and the New England Wildflower Society’s Conservation Award. He retired in January 2010.