It was a cold, rainy February morning to be riding a bicycle. On his way to his office, Andy Hudak stopped for a hot cup of drip coffee at One World Café on Main Street. Last week he was in Florida studying controlled forest fires. In two weeks, he will travel to Georgia to study their methods of controlled burning.
“Climate change is such an overreaching issue for everything we do. It’s hard to think of something we do that doesn’t have at least some implication for climate change,” Hudak said.
Hudak is an affiliate professor, regularly teaming with University of Idaho professors and graduate students. His current research uses aerial Light Detection and Ranging, also known as LiDAR, to study how wildfires interact with the forest. LiDAR is a radar system consisting of a laser and an echo recorder. Airplanes or drones carry the LiDAR systems flying over a sturdy area, measuring and recording the echoes of each laser shot. It then filters and inserts the data onto a Digital Terrain Model to represent the ground and a Canopy Height Model to represent vegetation. These models are converted into maps that reveal pre-fire, active fire and post-fire ecological conditions.
Hudak grew up in rural Minnesota near Grand Rapids. He has loved to explore his surroundings from a young age and discovered his interest in the world’s ecological wonderlands. He was interested in ecology before he even knew what the word meant.
Steeped in a culture where his dad was an avid hunter and fisherman, Hudak was eventually led to a career as a research forester.
“Ideas and things I could observe just being out in the woods is all part of ecology, so I got interested in that,” Hudak said.
His formal education started at Itasca Community College in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Hudak later transferred to the University of Minnesota at St. Paul. He graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in ecology, evolution and behavior.
In his last year at the University of Minnesota, his application to graduate school at the University of Colorado and his application to join the Peace Corps came through at the same time. Now, he needed to decide between continuing school or traveling the world.
Hudak decided to join the Peace Corps and taught secondary science in Malawi, Africa. They needed someone with a science degree.
“I was curious about teaching and teaching is one thing you can do with a science degree,” Hudak said.
While in Africa, he became interested in the issues around local deforestation, something the area has been struggling to fight. Hudak questioned what he could do to study this problem and find a way to contribute to a solution.
Currently, Hudak works with graduate students from the University of Idaho. His primary research interest is in fire ecology. Still, sometimes he gets called on to share his expertise with researchers in other fields. Hudak used his expertise in remote sensing to coach Jessica Stitt, a graduate candidate in wildlife biology.
Together with UI Professor Lee Vierling, UI Professor Kerri Vierling and Carlos Silva from the University of Florida, Hudak worked with Stitt to develop a research paper called “Evaluating the Use of Lidar to Discern Snag Characteristics Important for Wildlife” published February 2022.
A dead tree still standing in the forest is known as a snag which are essential for wildlife. Raptors use large snags as nesting platforms and woodpeckers use the smaller snags as nesting sites. A tree becomes a snag when it dies naturally of old age or gets killed in a forest fire.
“People should understand that fire is not evil and shouldn’t be vilified,” Stitt said.
Stitt’s research paper used Airborne Laser Scanning to map and identify where and how big the snags were. Her study plots were in forest stands within the Idaho Panhandle National Forest.
Hudak spends a lot of time considering the impact of his research, working with students and co-authors as a team to write research papers. He is always ready for new challenges.
“I still have trouble saying no to learning new things,” Hudak said.
In his current position, he has the freedom to choose the topics he studies. Hudak works on whatever piques his interest and gets to choose his collaborators, which is why he loves his work so much.
“One of the draws for a lot of the people that do this kind of work is to be able to be in the field and in the woods. When you’re out in the field, you remember, ‘Okay this is why I’m doing it,’” Stitt said. “Once you are sitting behind a computer, it gets harder and harder to remember ‘Why am I analyzing this data?’”
Fieldwork gives the freedom of being untethered to email and cell service. It’s challenging work, but the rewards come from being in the forest.
The attention his research has attracted has pushed Hudak out of the field and into the office, and he’s swapped the hard hat and work boots for comfortable office attire.
“I have less time to do my own analysis now. I do a lot more project management, so I’m in a lot more meetings, I’m often running the meetings,” Hudak said.
As the morning rain passed and the sun poked through the clouds. Hudak swigged the last of his coffee, donned his bicycle helmet, pant leg clips and rain jacket. He then pedaled off towards another project management day at the office.
Will Simpson can be reached at [email protected]