Graduate Programs

The University of Idaho’s College of Natural Resources offers numerous graduate degrees both on campus and online. Benefiting from the expertise of over 60 faculty members, you have the opportunity to focus your research in a specific area of interest or career goal.

You can learn more about the various graduate programs CNR has to offer by visiting CNR’s Graduate Studies Office website.

The Department of Forest, Rangeland and Fire Sciences offers numerous graduate courses which cover a breadth of subject areas. Below are some of the courses you would have the opportunity to take:

• FIRE 526 – Fire Ecology
  Fire-related ecology of plant and animal species in wildlands; effects of fire occurrence and suppression on physical environment, landscapes, and processes in both natural and managed ecosystems.
• FIRE 554 – Air Quality, Pollution, and Smoke
  Provides details of the controls and drivers of emission processes and impacts on air quality from fires, industry, and natural sources. The course provides an overview of relevant policy and health impacts of various air pollutants on humans. It also includes detail on atmospheric chemistry and physics related to natural and anthropogenic emissions and how these impact atmospheric chemistry and climate.Overview of the combustion and emission process, how these emissions impact air quality, and what models exist to monitor these emissions. Other topics to include: guidelines for smoke management planning, attainment issues, atmospheric transport and deposition processes.
• FIRE 587 – Wildland Fire Policy
  Relationships between fire science and management and the federal laws and regulations that affect fire management in wildland ecosystems; the politics of wildland fire; and the effects of wildland fire on wildland-urban interface (WUI) communities. Recommended preparation is an upper division course in natural resource, environmental policy.
• FOR 522 – Belowground Processes
  Belowground Processes considers current advancements in understanding of root growth and development, water and nutrient acquisition, rhizosphere functions, soil microbial community composition and functions, organic matter decomposition, and symbiotic associations between plants and microbes. Examples focus mainly on forest and wildland terrestrial ecosystems. Students learn various techniques for studying belowground processes and apply them in self-directed, hypothesis-driven projects. Offered every other year during fall semester.
• FOR 546 – Science Synthesis and Communication
  Critically review science literature and write both brief and in-depth syntheses to address applied questions in science and management. Learn best practices for summarizing and communicating science effectively. Discuss challenges for application of science in management. Examples will focus on wildland fire science and management.
• FOR 584 – Natural Resource Policy Development
  The development of natural resource policy with emphasis on the policy process at the federal level in the U.S.; the role of and interrelationships between staff, committees, agencies and elected officials; the relationship of science and scientists with policy and politicians in the development of natural resource policy, including preparation of testimony related to natural resource science and policy issues; implementation of policy within the natural resource agencies and judicial interpretation of major natural resource policies in the U.S.
• FSP 536 – Biocomposites
  Raw material, processes, properties, and their applications for a number of natural fiber and wood composites made of veneers, particles and fibers.
• FSP 538 – Lignocellulosic Biomass Chemistry
  The chemistry of lignocellulosic fiber (natural fiber and wood) formation and structure.