Martin Wilmking

Martin Wilmking, a professor of landscape ecology at
University Greifswald in Germany, earned his doctorate with SNRAS in 2003.

“I came to UAF out of pure passion for the north, my love of
Alaska,” Wilmking said. “During my PhD studies I learned about the complex
dynamics of northern ecosystems, their possibly drastic and sudden changes.
“Next to my passionate view of the landscapes, which I had
from the beginning, during my studies I developed my scientific view of the
land. To see the traces of past dynamics, to see the different players involved
in shaping the current status of the ecological systems. Every new Ph.D.
student I take on now in my job, I hope to give as much as I received back at
UAF.  Alaska gave me self-confidence,
sharpened my scientific intellect, but above all further fired up my love for
wild places.”
As a graduate student, Wilmking mapped the forests in Denali
National Park and Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. He examined
why some trees respond positively to warming and some don’t.
Wilmking credited Professor Glenn Juday with helping him
achieve his goals. The two continue their collaboration to this day and
Wilmking serves as an adjunct professor for SNRAS. His dissertation was “The
Treeline Ecotone in Interior Alaska – From theoretical concept to planning
application and the science in between.”
Wilmking and Juday learned how to reconstruct past climates
by studying tree rings.

Wilmking has been published in 70 scientific publications
and secured $5.3 million (U.S. dollars) in research funds. He is a reviewer for
many publications, including Science, Nature Climate Change, Arctic, New
Phytologist and Annals of Forest Science.
He and his wife Gabriela Antunez de Mayolo Wilmking have three children.
Interesting facts about Wilmking:

  • He wouldn’t give up on finding Bob Marshall’s (founder of
    the Wilderness Society) treeline experiment in the Brooks Range. Marshall had
    sowed white spruce seeds in a 12×12 plot to study tree-line advance in 1939.
    When Wilmking found the plot, he also found a note from Sam Wright, reporting
    that when Wright had found the plot in 1968 no seeds from Marshall had sprouted
    and he had replanted the plot with 100 seedlings of white spruce. When Wilmking
    relocated the plot in 2001, he found two seedlings still alive (see Wilmking
    and Ibendorf, 2004).
  • He sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in 1998 and lived and
    sailed on a sailboat in the Mediterranean alone for nine months.

Honors and
Awards:
2012
Elected Board member of “Young Academy” (Die
Junge Akademie) at the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the
National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
2011-2012
Elected Chair of “Young Academy” (Die Junge
Akademie) at the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the National
Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
2008
Selection into the “Young Academy” (Die Junge
Akademie) at the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and the National
Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
2006
Emmy Noether Junior Research Group from the German Science
Foundation (DFG)
2004
Sofja Kovalevskaja Award by the Alexander von Humboldt
Foundation
2004
Emmy Noether Fellowship from the German Science Foundation
(DFG)
2004
NOAA/UCAR Postdoctoral Fellowship for Global and Climate
Change