Michael Premer

Mike joined the faculty in fall 2022 after serving as Silviculture Research Manager with Rayonier in the Pacific Northwest and as a postdoctoral researcher with the U.S. Forest Service and Michigan State University. His work focuses on applied, high-precision silviculture and the development of decision support tools that translate site conditions, stand structure, and environmental variability into actionable forest management decisions.

His research integrates forest biometrics, digital soil and site mapping, LiDAR-derived canopy structure, and traditional inventory data to better interpret and predict site–vegetation dynamics. Current efforts emphasize digital soil and species suitability modeling, thinning response across environmental gradients, canopy structure and competition (e.g., CrownPrint), and operational planning tools that link site assessment with harvest layout and silvicultural prescriptions (e.g., LSAT–HULA).

Collectively, this work aims to embed quantitative research directly into operational workflows, enabling more precise, adaptive, and efficient management of working forests.

Appointment details

Premer’s work is supported by:

• School of Forest Resources at the College of Earth, Life, and Health Sciences
• Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station

Experiment Station contributions

• Current project: Precision Forest Management Solutions for Northern Forests. McIntire-Stennis project number ME042424.