Dr. Keith J.S. Jayawickrama offers research and tree improvement experience spanning more than 20 years to feedstock development for the Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance project. His work focuses on four fast-growing conifers—Douglas-fir, western hemlock, radiata pine, and loblolly pine—in the United States, New Zealand, and Chile. He directs Oregon State University’s Northwest Tree Improvement Cooperative that, with its predecessor, has coordinated one of the world’s most extensive tree improvement programs, testing more than 30,000 first- and second-cycle selections. Dr. Jayawickrama’s research includes tree-breeding strategy, genetic parameters estimation, inheritance of and selection for wood properties, realized genetic gain, and seed orchard management.
Dr. Jayawickrama has also worked as a scientist with the New Zealand Forest Research Institute in Rotorua; as an assistant professor and assistant director of the Tree Improvement Cooperative of the Universidad Austral de Chile in Valdivia; and a demonstrator for the Department of Botany at the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka.
Dr. Jayawickrama earned his Ph.D. in Tree Improvement from North Carolina State University in 1996.