The UBC Faculty of Forestry’s Future Forests Fellowship aims to attract and retain world-class doctoral students by supporting students who demonstrate both leadership skills and a high standard of scholarly achievement in graduate studies. The fellowship is intended to cover all expenses incurred in the preparation and conduct of research. Held on a 4-year cycle (last cycle, 2022 – applications closed), the award is up to $70,000 annually for up to four years. Please watch for announcements in 2026 (funding dependent).
University of British Columbia
Vancouver Campus
The fellowship recipient will enroll in our PhD program and conduct research focused in British Columbia in one of the following areas:
Forest Products Biotechnology – Bioenergy – Forest Genomics – Climate Change – Urban Forestry – Forest Management – Conservation – Forested Landscapes – Salmon Ecology – Forest Health – Forests and Indigenous Peoples – Forests and Human Health
Join us at a top-ranking university and faculty
UBC is ranked in the top 35 research universities in the world
UBC Forestry is ranked in the top 3 forestry schools in the world
UBC Forestry received $12.7 million in research funding in 2020/21
Vancouver, Canada is the 3rd most livable city in the world
Meet Sara Barron – Past Fellowship Recipient
Learn more about Sara’s research
Sara Barron
Canada
Balancing forest environments and high-density housing
Urban forestry research is currently focusing on quantifying the myriad benefits of trees in urban neighbourhoods. Much important research is focusing on quantifying the positive benefits of urban forests in terms of climate change mitigation, such as their ability to mitigate the urban heat island effect, sequester carbon dioxide, provide shade to reduce energy needs to condition buildings, and even provide a renewable bioenergy source.
Learn about some of our PhD students
Douglas Bolton
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Douglas Bolton
Canada
Assessing forest structure from above
Forests play a critical role in the global carbon cycle by regulating carbon exchanges between the atmosphere and the terrestrial biosphere. While carbon sequestration is a vital ecosystem service provided by forests, the future of forest carbon dynamics remains uncertain in the face of a changing climate. Specifically, changes in forest productivity, disturbance regimes, and continued land conversion are expected to alter rates of carbon sequestration and carbon storage in the world’s forests.
Andrea Lyall
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Andrea Lyall
Canada
Kwikwasut’inuxw Haxwa’mis First Nation’s (KHFN) Relationship with the Forests
Andrea is using indigenous and transformative methodologies to frame culturally relevant protocols and forest governance structure that address and embrace KHFN’s relationship to the forests as a Kwakwaka’wakw Nation.
Alex Chee Yu Yeung
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Alex Chee Yu Yeung
China
Effects of forest harvesting on stream ecosystem structure and functioning
The overall theme of my PhD research is centred on how forest disturbance alters the ecosystem stability of headwater and riparian ecosystems, and the variations of its drivers across multiple spatial (reach, watershed and regional) and temporal scales. In view of the strong forest-aquatic connectivity in the source waters, I seek to develop a mechanistic understanding of how different forest harvesting practices affect multiple structural and functional indicators of stream health, including macroinvertebrate abundance and richness, organic matter decomposition and nutrient processing.