PULLMAN, Wash. — Keith A. Blatner has been appointed chair of Washington State University’s natural resource sciences department at Washington State University, effective today.
He succeeds Ed DePuit, who resigned to accept a position with the U.S. Forest Service in Wenatchee.
“We look forward to Keith’s leadership of the department and contributions to the administrative team,” said James J. Zuiches, dean of the College of Agriculture and Home Economics.
Blatner, a professor of forest economics, joined the WSU faculty in the natural resources department in 1983. He has worked on a variety of research and consulting projects in the Pacific Northwest as well as Russia, Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America. His research has resulted in more than 100 publications.
He has a bachelor’s of science degree in natural resources from Ohio State University, a master’s of science degree in forestry from Mississippi State University and a doctorate in forestry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
The natural resource sciences department offers degrees in forest management, wildlife management, range management and wildland recreation as well as a less structured natural resources degree. This latter degree is designed to provide students with the opportunity to develop and pursue individualized curricula that includes subject matter and breadth tailored to individual student interests and needs and to focus on new, different and emerging fields of natural resource sciences that transcend the traditional disciplinary lines.
Departmental research focuses on understanding and managing forest and rangeland ecosystems and the array of natural resources, resource values and socioeconomic factors associated with such ecosystems.
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