Virginia H. Dale

ORNL Corporate Fellow

Landscape Ecology & Regional Analysis Group
Environmental Sciences Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6036
Phone:  (865)576-8043
Fax:  (865)576-8543
dalevh@ornl.gov

Affiliation: Adjunct professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee: http://www.bio.utk.edu/eebwebsi.nsf

Research Interests

Dr. Virginia H. Dale’s primary research interests are in a landscape design for bioenergy, environmental decision making, land-use change, landscape ecology, and ecological modeling. She has worked on developing tools for resource management, vegetation recovery subsequent to disturbances; effects of climate change on forests; and integrating socioeconomic and ecological models of land-use change.  Her current research involves working closely with resource managers to identify indicators of ecological change at different scales and to design models that can project regional changes in environmental conditions.

Background/Education

• B.A. in Mathematics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1974 (with honors)
• M.S. in Mathematics with a minor in Ecology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1975
• Ph.D. in Mathematical Ecology (a Special Individual Ph.D. Program), University of Washington, Seattle, 1980

Professional Activities

Dr. Dale has served on national scientific advisory boards for five federal agencies (the Environmental Protection Agency, US Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, and Interior).  She is chair of the US Committee on Scope Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), which is part of the International Council for Science. She also has served on several committees of the National Academy of Sciences. Dale is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Environmental Management and is on the editorial board for three journals: Ecological Indicators, Ecological Economics, and the Journal of Land Use Science. She was Chair of the US Regional Association of the International Association for Landscape Ecology, has served on the scientific review team for The Nature Conservancy. She served on the Executive Committee of the Policy Team for Southern Appalachian Assessment, which won Vice President Gore’s Hammer Award.

Selected Publications

Dale has authored > 170 published articles and has presented 15 plenary lectures at national and international scientific meetings, >60 symposia presentations, >70 invited seminars, and >60 public lectures. She is coauthor of the book Road Ecology and has edited six books including:

• Dale, V.H. (editor). 1994. Effects of Land Use Change on Atmospheric CO₂ Concentrations: Southeast Asia as a Case Study. New York: Springer-Verlag.
• Dale, V.H. and English, M.R. (editors). 1999. Tools to Aid Environmental Decision Making. New York: Springer-Verlag.
• Dale, V.H. and Haeuber, R.A. (editors). 2001. Applying Ecological Principles to Land Management. New York: Springer-Verlag.
• Dale, V.H. (editor). 2003. Ecological modeling for resource management. New York: Springer-Verlag ( http://www.esd.ornl.gov/programs/SERDP/EcoMod/ ).
• Dale, V.H., Swanson, F.J., and Crisafulli, C.M. (editors). 2005. Ecology Responses to the 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens. New York: Springer-Verlag.
• Forman, RT., V.H. Dale and others. 2003. Road Ecology: Science and Solutions. Island Press.

Project Web Sites

• Climate Change Effects on Tennessee Forests
• A Landscape Design for Bioenergy Cropping Options
• Center for BioEnergy Sustainability
• Forest Conservation at the Landscape Scale in the Northern Cumberland Plateau
• The Committee of Scientist Report for the Secretary of Agriculture
• Projects on land management supported by the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program:
  • A regional simulator of ecological impacts
  • Ecological modeling for resource management
  • Ecological models to support land management
  • Indicators of ecological change
  • Integration of ecological information

Curriculum Vitae