People

Interested in joining us? Contact Tuomas Aakala (tuomas.aakala@uef.fi) for opportunities.

For full contact information, see the University of Eastern Finland website: https://uefconnect.uef.fi/en/forest-disturbance-ecology/#people

Tuomas Aakala

Johanna Toivonen

I work as a researcher in the project Borealization of the Finnish Subarctic (BOREARC). I am a treeline ecologist interested in ecological and ecophysiological processes, and plant-environment interactions in a broad sense, at high elevation and high latitude treelines. I use research methods from traditional field ecology to ecophysiological measurements and dendrochronology aiming to understand these processes in space and time.

Mariina "Tilla" Günther

I work as a doctoral researcher in the Kelo project (www.kelokko.fi). We aim to uncover why long-lasting Deadwood forms, and I am tackling this question through studying the chemical composition of the Scots pine deadwood, combining ecology, spectroscopy and chemistry. I am also part of SNS network studying long‐term Deadwood Trends in Fennoscandia and a board member of Forest Biology group under The Finnish Society of Forest Science.

Aleksi Nirhamo

Pemelyn Santos

I work as a doctoral researcher in the Kelo project, where I study the growth history Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris) and investigate how and why some of them die standing and turn into persistent deadwood in Finnish boreal forests. By analysing tree rings, I explore the patterns of their formation, how long they remain standing after death, and the factors that influence these processes.

Former members and visitors

Henri Wallen – Visiting Researcher from the University of Lapland, Finland. Henri visited us in March-April 2025, on collaboration in our joint project on the Borealization of the Finnish Subarctic.

Tuomo Wallenius – Senior Researcher. Tuomo is a specialist in dendrochronology. He worked with us in February-March 2025, in the Zetterberg tree ring data project.

Benoit Perier – Intern, studying at AgroParisTech, France. Benoit worked for the summer 2024 with a group of Finnish M.Sc. students on our natural forest dynamics projects, re-measuring a permanent plot in the Petkeljärvi National Park.

Zhongqian Zheng – Visiting Doctoral Researcher, Peking University, China. Zhongqian worked on her PhD thesis on mountain forest dynamics in Shangri-La, China, during an extended visit to our group from November 2022 to February 2024.

Marie Kivits – Intern, studying at AgroParisTech, France. Marie helped us collect 900+ increment cores during the summer 2023, as a part of the Kelo-project.

Romain Bergeret – Intern, studying at AgroParisTech, France. Romain joined us for the summer 2022, helping us with field sampling in different parts of Finland, as part of the Kelo project.

Daniela Oliveira da Silva – Visiting Doctoral Researcher, Universidad de Valo Paraiba, Brazil. Daniela worked with us on her PhD thesis on the dendrochronology of Brazilian tree species. She stayed with us from September 2021 to February 2022.

Flore Cottinet – Intern, studying at UniLaSalle, France. Flore stayed with us from October 2021 to February 2022, helping our field crews collecting samples for fire history reconstructions, as well as in the lab, processing samples for our dead wood dynamics work.

Roman Flury – Visiting Doctoral Researcher, University of Zürich, Switzerland. Roman visited us in October 2021, working on his PhD thesis on scale-dependencies in large geographical datasets.