GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A UF/IFAS scientist, who has helped design a tree risk-management app and is co-writing tree identification books, has been named as a co-recipient of the International Society of Arboriculture’s Early Career Scientist Award.
The award is given to professionals showing exceptional promise in arboriculture research.
Andrew Koeser, an assistant professor in environment horticulture at the UF/IFAS Gulf Coast Research and Education Center in Baum, is also a faculty member at the UF/IFAS Center for Landscape Conservation and Ecology.
One of Koeser’s projects is a mobile app for risk-assessment data collection and mapping. He is also co-writing a series of tree identification books unique to the different regions of Florida.
Koeser hopes his research enhances efforts to improve risk-assessment and storm response processes. The app project is designed to give cities an easy and efficient means of taking inventory and assessing the safety of their trees. Should a severe storm hit, the data collected will help managers more quickly estimate debris levels for cleanup.
“My research in tree risk assessment carries on the goal of enhancing current efforts being made to improve assessment processes,” said Koeser, a faculty member with the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. “I think the app project has the potential to gather user data needed in order to make reasonable assessments of potential tree failure.”
Koeser credits working as an intern at ISA headquarters, while earning his master’s in natural resources and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for helping him discover his passion for developing arboricultural teaching tools. He continued to work as ISA’s science and research manager for two years before devoting himself full-time to completing his doctorate in crop sciences at Illinois, with emphases in horticulture and biometry.
He is an ISA Board Certified Master Arborist and is Tree Risk Assessment Qualified.
Koeser is one of nine professionals who make up the circle of winners for ISA’s 2015 Awards of Distinction, sponsored by Bartlett Tree Experts.
The group honored Koeser at an Aug. 9 ceremony in Orlando, as part of the 91st Annual ISA International Conference and Trade Show.