Rosemary Sherriff’s interests include biogeography, landscape ecology, forest disturbances (wildfire, insect outbreaks) and dendrochronology.   Her research focus is on long-term patterns of vegetation and disturbance history in relation to climate variability and natural and human-induced causes. Rosemary’s work integrates both natural and human dimensions of landscape change using a variety of approaches that include dendrochronology, vegetation analysis, climate variability, and GIS.  She is particularly interested in topics that include: (1) relationships between biophysical factors and climate variation in controlling disturbance regimes (i.e. wildfire and insect outbreaks) over space and time in different ecosystems; and (2) interrelated issues of vegetation dynamics, climate variability, land-use change and ecological vulnerability.

Rosemary’s current projects focus on determining variation in past disturbance regimes in the western U.S. and Alaska. In Colorado, she is currently working with colleagues
from the University of Colorado at Boulder and Gettysburg College on interrelated issues
of forest management, land-use change, wildfire risk, and ecological integrity. This
research integrates both natural and human dimensions of resilience and landscape change in the wildland-urban interface. This research will allow for an assessment of changes in fire hazard conditions based on historic fire regimes with current and future fuel conditions and land management scenarios for the growing wildland-urban interface of Colorado. In Alaska, she is currently working on projects that involve reconstructing historic patterns of insect outbreaks in spruce forests related to long-term climate variability with the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She also continues to work with colleagues in Hawaii exploring the use of tree-ring analysis for dating native trees and examining issues of conservation, wildfire risk, and invasive species.