Professor Douglas Sheil

Since January 2021 I am a professor in Wageningen University in the Netherlands where I head the “Forest Ecology and Forest Management” chair group. I am an ecologist, forester and conservationist. I have broad multidisciplinary interests focused on forests, their biota and the people who depend on them. Most of my research has focused on the tropics. 

I was born in Northern Ireland and raised in the Republic of Ireland. I trained in Natural Sciences (MA, Cambridge) and Forestry (MSc, Oxford) in the UK. After two years in East Africa (IUCN, based in Nairobi, Kenya), I conducted my doctoral "DPhil." research on long-term forest change in Uganda, while employed by the University of Oxford. 

My postdoctoral experience includes ten years in Indonesia with the Centre for International Forest Research (CIFOR, 1998-2008) and four years as director of the Institute for Tropical Forest Conservation in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda  (2008-2012). I also spent a year in Southern Cross University in New South Wales, Australia (2012-2013). Before joining Wageningen, I was a professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) in Ås, Norway (2013-2020). I remain a Senior Associate with CIFOR, in Indonesia.