Understanding the lifecycle of the forest

Mount Holyoke College’s Assistant Professor of Data Science Meg Graham MacLean studies how land-use and forest-policy decisions affect the climate. Her computer models follow carbon as forests grow, trees are harvested, wood becomes a product and that product is ultimately discarded.

She explains that a tree harvested from a New England forest might become mulch, firewood or cabinetry. Eventually, each product reaches the end of its useful life, enters a landfill, gets burned or releases stored carbon through another process. MacLean seeks to understand that journey.

Her calculations are complicated. Lower-quality wood might become animal bedding or firewood, while higher-quality wood might be converted into flooring. When the product is discarded, some of its carbon may remain in a landfill while another portion may be released as carbon dioxide or methane.

MacLean has worked with researchers at Harvard Forest and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to model how different land-use decisions could support the state’s net-zero goals. She answers questions such as:

• “Should we produce more wood locally instead of importing it?”
• “Should we reduce local harvesting?” and
• “How can we place solar energy installations thoughtfully?”

MacLean’s research helps policymakers understand the trade-offs among forest management, renewable-energy development, wood production, carbon storage and emissions.

“We tend to hope, and I love this because I love forests, that our forests will save us all,” MacLean says. “But they can only do so much. We have to do the rest.”

MacLean’s path to forest modeling began in the built environment. She double-majored in civil and environmental engineering and physics at Clarkson University. While studying abroad in Australia, she took an ecology course and attended a field camp. From this, she learned she could combine her love of mathematics, statistics, coding and large datasets with her desire to work outdoors.

She later earned a doctorate in natural resources and Earth systems science from the University of New Hampshire. Since then, her career has included teaching at Babson College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, academic leadership with the School for Field Studies and research at Harvard Forest.

At Mount Holyoke, MacLean is teaching data science. Capstone students bring questions and datasets from their areas of interest, giving MacLean an opportunity to learn about their passions while helping them find meaningful answers using data. In the introductory course, students build a foundation in statistics and programming while gaining the confidence to answer questions effectively. “If somebody hands them some data and asks, ‘Do you know what to do with this?’, they can say yes,” MacLean says. “And if they don’t know right away, they can figure it out.”

MacLean’s connection to Mount Holyoke began years before she joined the faculty. As an undergraduate, she spent summers living on campus and teaching physics to fifth- and sixth-graders. She later returned to the Pioneer Valley and has lived in Amherst for nearly a decade. She says Mount Holyoke was on her radar because of the motivated, inclusive and community-minded students she encountered.

Outside of work, MacLean spends much of her time transporting her two children to their activities. When she finds time, she heads outside with her dog Juniper. “I love just wandering around in the woods with Juniper as a time to clear my head, think and be quiet for a little bit,” she says.