We are most pleased to welcome Dr. Philip Owens, who joins us from the U.K. Phil has physical geography degrees from UBC (MSc), and Exeter University, UK (PhD) and was working at the National Soil Resources Institute at Cranfield University, UK, before taking this position at UNBC. He is currently in the Environmental Science Program.  He has worked on sediment tracing techniques, large scale sediment fluxes, and sediment-associated nutrient transfers in catchments.  While in the UK he was working extensively within the European Union on the process of developing guidance for an EU sediment management policy.

We are also delighted to welcome back Dr. Ellen Petticrew from a two-year leave that she spent in the School of Geography at the University of Plymouth (U.K.). Drs. Petticrew and Owens began positions as Joint Chairs of Landscape Ecology at UNBC in January 2007. Their research looks at the linkage between terrestrial and aquatic systems with sediment transfers, and their implications, studied at both the catchment and plot scales. Future (and some current) work will have an emphasis on sediment impacts from disturbance regimes such as fire, forest harvesting, pine beetles and agriculture.  The majority of their future work will take place in the Quesnel River Watershed (~11,500 km²) based out of UNBC's Quesnel River Research Centre in Likely, BC (www.unbc.ca/qrrc).