Robert Rhew completes term as Faculty Director of the Central Sierra Field Stations

(July 1, 2022) Rob completed his 5-year appointment as the Faculty Director of the Central Sierra Field Stations (Sagehen Creek Field Station, Central Sierra Snow Lab, Onion Creek Experimental Forest, North Fork Association Lands, and the Chickering Reserve).

These are excellent field sites for research, education and outreach. Numerous faculty and instructors continue to conduct research and teach courses at Sagehen (e.g., River Restoration, Bug Boot Camp and the UC NRS California Ecology and Conservation course). In addition, University of Nevada Reno, the Truckee K-12 school district, and the Adventure-Risk-Challenge program for underserved youth (which originated at Sagehen in 2004), are regulars. Sagehen Field Station is now 100% solar powered for electricity (installed by Liberty Utilities) during the summer in order to be able to de-energize the electricity lines traversing miles of wilderness during the wildfire season. Collaborators at the Snow Lab include the Department of Water Resources, the National Weather Service, Forest Service, USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service, Desert Research Institute, NOAA, local ski resorts, and university researchers.

Rhew’s main activities as Faculty Director were: to support existing projects with our long-serving station managers (Jeff Brown and Faerthen Felix at Sagehen, and Randall Osterhuber at the Snow Lab); to create faculty advisory committees for Sagehen and the Snow Lab; to achieve financial stability in the face of significant budget reductions; to recruit and appoint outstanding new station managers for Sagehen and the Snow Lab (upon the retirement of the prior station managers in 2019-20); to strengthen connections between these remote reserves and partners in research, teaching and service; and to serve as de facto station manager for 16- and 12-month periods for the Snow Lab and Sagehen, respectively, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additional activities included: coordinating the Sagehen Data Boot Camp (5/21/18 to 5/29/18), hosting the 2nd Baird-fest for Graduate Student Fellowship recipients (9/28/19 to 9/29/19), presenting at the Learning in Retirement series at UC Berkeley (3/29/22), tabling for the Snow Lab at Legacy Day at the Donner Memorial State Park (6/11/22), and touring the reserves with NRS Executive Director Steve Monfort and liaisons (June, 2022).

Rhew is pleased to leave the Central Sierra Field Stations in most capable hands. The new station managers (Dr. Ash Zemenick at Sagehen Creek Field Station and Dr. Andrew Schwartz at the Snow Lab) have recently celebrated the completion of their successful first year, and in that time, they have brought many new directions of emphasis to their field stations. We welcome the arrival of the new Faculty Director, Prof. Neil Tsutsui (ESPM), who starts his term on July 1, 2022.

Caption: UC Berkeley Field Stations and Faculty Directors