Who we are

The Future Forest Ecosystems Centre is a brand new research-oriented team at the Forest Carbon and Climate Services Branch of the Office of the Chief Forester (BC Ministry of Forests).

Started in 2022, the FFEC has put together a team of researchers to answer complex questions about the stability and resilience for British Columbia’s forests to the effects of ongoing climate change, drought, pests and fire.

To answer these complex questions, we use a using a variety of approaches from advanced statistical modelling to downscale climate projections and complex ecological landscape simulation modelling, to collecting and analysing dendrochronological data to investigate tree and stand responses to climate warming and drought.

Team profiles

Dr Colin Mahony RPF, Research Climatologist, Team Lead

Colin has a 25 year career in forestry and climate change adaptation. He started as a consultant in the areas of basic silviculture, timber supply analysis, restoration of forests disturbed by mountain pine beetle, wildfire hazard reduction around communities, and ecosystem mapping. Motivated by climate change impacts he witnessed in the field, Colin left consulting in 2013 to pursue a PhD in ecological climatology with Prof. Sally Aitken at UBC Forestry, focusing on the emergence of novel climate types in BC. He joined the BC Government in 2020 as Research Climatologist in the Office of the Chief Forester. As Team Lead, Colin coordinates the operations and strategic direction of the FFEC, and contributes to the development of decision support tools. Colin lives in Victoria with his wife and two kids.

Dr Courtney Collins, Climate Change Research Ecologist

Courtney is a plant community ecologist and biogeographer, with a motivation for understanding the myriad drivers of species range dynamics and their responses to global change. She has expertise in alpine tundra ecosystems and is excited to be transitioning to a focus on the beautiful forest ecosystems of British Columbia. Much of her research focuses on the combination of biotic and abiotic drivers that shape species responses to the environment, including competitive dynamics, plant-soil interactions, and plant phenology and functional traits. Courtney has a passion for data science and ecological modeling and loves employing a diverse set of statical modeling frameworks to address challenging ecological questions.

Kiri Daust, Data Scientist

Kiri Daust is a Data Scientist with FFEC. His work involves climate modelling, machine learning, and app development. Kiri recently completed his MSc with Adam Monahan’s lab at UVic, where he developed Generative Adversarial Networks (a type of deep learning) for statistical downscaling of climate variables, with the hope that this can be an accurate and computationally efficient method. Kiri lives with his wife on Saltspring Island, where they raise goats and are learning to make cheese. In his spare time, Kiri likes playing dramatic violin music, jamming with friends, and baking with lots of butter.

Dr Aseem Sharma, Research Climatologist

Aseem is a Research Climatologist at FFEC bringing his expertise as a hydro-climatologist to the team. He is interested in understanding how climate variability and atmospheric dynamics influence surface hydro-climatology, extreme climate events, and wildfires. Currently, his research work is focused on improving our understanding of how extreme weathers events occur and impact our forest, ecosystems, and communities. Previously he worked in research projects that investigated the role of atmospheric blocking on wildfires, lightning occurrences and wildfires, Atmospheric Rivers and their impacts on water resources, climate change and their impacts, especially on the mountainous region of Himalayas and the Canadian Rockies, and climate change risk assessments.

Destany Crane, Data Architect