May 25, 2010
The Nelson Institute's Land Tenure Center is hosting a graduate of the institute, Triet Tran, as an honorary fellow for 2010. Tran is the Southeast Asia Program coordinator of the International Crane Foundation, where he oversees crane research and conservation activities in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. As an honorary fellow, Tran plans to collaborate with Nelson Institute faculty and staff members and students to develop an interdisciplinary Mekong regional study that would involve the crane foundation and universities located in the Mekong basin. Tran, who received his Ph.D. in land resources from the Nelson Institute in 1999, will design and teach a graduate seminar course about biodiversity conservation in fall 2010. Working with Professor Nancy Mathews, chair of the Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development (CBSD) program, he will align the seminar to the interests of CBSD graduate students. During this fellowship year, Tran also expects to complete three papers for publication in peer-review journals. The Land Tenure Center will organize several campus public events related to Tran's research on tropical freshwater wetland vegetation, community participation in wetland conservation, invasive alien plants, hydrological restoration, and monitoring the recovery of mangrove forests after natural disasters. The United Nations designated 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity, and Tran has been invited to the launching ceremony in February in New York, where his work in Vietnam through the crane foundation's Phu My Lepironia Wetland Conservation Project will be showcased as a successful example of community-based biodiversity conservation. He also will add his perspective and expertise to a high-level panel that will help shape biodiversity conversation this year and beyond. Tran has served as dean of Biology Faculty and head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Science in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He is a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Commission on Ecosystem Management and Invasive Species Specialist Group.