SREF Hosts Visiting Scholar from Latvia, Lelde Vilkriste Ph.D.
Dr. Lelde Vilkriste is looking to visit Southern forestry Extension units in the South!
Dr. Lelde Vilkriste of Latvia arrived in the United States in July, 2012 for a 10 month stay with funding provided by the Baltic American Freedom Foundation Scholarship. Her primary research interests while here include learning more about the Cooperative Extension System, forestry-specific Extension efforts, forest landowner education and communication as it relates to forestry in general.
Dr. Vilkriste has an M.Ed in Adult Education and a Ph.D. in Forestry and is currently employed by the Latvia Forest Research Institute "Silava". Her day-to-day work in Latvia primarily involves outreach to target audiences such as forest landowners, forest staff and specialists, students, teachers and the public in general.
Because Extension forestry is a relatively new concept in Latvia and they are in the process of developing an Extension "system" for
landowners and other citizen groups and because forest issues in Latvia are very similar to those in the United States, any information Dr. Vilkriste can obtain while here will be
very valuable to her work back home.
Currently, Dr. Vilkriste's travel plans include visiting different forest related organizations and agencies, meeting with forest Extension specialists and landowners, participating in different educational and topic-related events. Her visit with Southern Regional Extension Forestry was chosen primarily due to the variety of educational programs and initiatives being led out of the office and because of its central location to many other robust and successful southern forestry Extension programs.
If interested in hosting Dr. Vilkriste for an Extension related event or for several days at your home institution, please contact her at lelde.vilkriste@inbox.lv or email the Southern Regional Extension Forestry staff at staff@sref.info!
