Professor Jeff Morrell has commenced as the first Director of the Forestry Centre of Excellence (FCoE), ready to lead the centre into its next chapter as an international leader in forest industries for research, education, product and market development.
Professor Morrell, who spent more than three decades leading the durability program at Oregon State University in the United States, was also the director of the Centre for Timber Durability and Design Life based at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland between 2018 and 2023.
“I’m very pleased to join the team at Mount Gambier to help move the Forestry Centre of Excellence forward, and I’m honoured to have been chosen to help direct the centre,” Professor Morrell said. “It’s an exciting time to be in forestry in Australia with the resurgence in interest in our discipline over the past few years and the support for the centre from industry, the State Government and Federal Government highlights the growing importance of our forests.”
It comes after South Australia’s premier revealed new impressions for Mount Gambier’s new Forestry Centre of Excellence (FCoE), set to be built in the heart of Australia’s Green Triangle. Visiting in October, Premier Peter Malinauskas said the government was “delivering on our election commitment to establish a world-leading Forestry Centre of Excellence,” which he said would “strengthen this already thriving industry.”
The centre is a collaborative project between the State Government, the University of South Australia (UniSA) and the forest industry. It will be built on the same site as the UniSA Mount Gambier campus, the new Mount Gambier Technical College and the Mount Gambier TAFE, providing a unique opportunity to create an education, training and research precinct.
“These latest exciting steps in establishing the Forestry Centre for Excellence will further drive existing and future research, development, and extension activities, covering forestry’s social, economic, and environmental aspects in the Green Triangle region,” said Clare Scriven, South Australia’s Minister for Primary Industries.
“This centre will support the full forestry supply chain, including plantation management, harvesting and haulage and timber processing and will also aim to cover the technical, safety, and training aspects relevant to those sectors whilst building greater connections with our First Nations people.”
From today, Professor Morrell will oversee new research being performed at temporary facilities, including:
- structural timber market access
- improving safety
- fire detection from cameras and satellites
- suppression, recovery, and analysis of digital forestry data using artificial intelligence
- Immersive data analytics using VR and AR to understand the implications of climate change on plantation growth yield and water use.
UniSA Chancellor John Hill said the University of South Australia was honoured to host the new Forestry Centre of Excellence, which had evolved from Forest Research Mount Gambier, established in 2018 by the State and Federal Government, UniSA and the forestry industry.
“The model of recruiting UniSA researchers into the forestry industry has resulted in a more efficient, safer, progressive, and profitable industry, establishing standards for best practice,” he said. “Together with the State Government, we are proud to continue this partnership and help advance research and development projects to ensure the industry’s economic prosperity, committing more than $6m towards the centre’s operations and building along with significant in-kind support.”
