Prof. Dr. Thomas Seifert

Prof Dr rer. silv. Thomas Seifert is head of the Chair of Forest Growth and Dendroecology. His career began with a degree in Forest Sciences at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and a subsequent doctorate under Prof Dr Hans Pretzsch at the Chair of Forest Growth Science at the Technical University of Munich on the integration of wood quality and wood sorting in treatment-sensitive forest growth models. After working as a professor at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa from 2008 to 2014, and further positions at Linnaeus University Sweden and in the private sector, he took over the professorship for Forest Growth and Dendroecology at the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg in 2019.

Prof. Seifert works on topics of forest growth science, in particular the influence of stress factors on the growth of trees, whereby the spectrum of observation ranges from the cell to the stand and stress due to current climate changes is at the centre of consideration. Growth processes are researched primarily in their structural form. Modern methods of recording tree and branch structures using laser scanning, machine learning methods for three-dimensional image analysis, methods of tree ring analysis, xylogenesis and quantitative wood anatomy as well as forest growth models are part of the range of methods that are being actively developed at the professorship.

Other important areas of research are agroforestry systems, in particular the tree component, as well as the recording of trees and forests using efficient methods in the course of precision forestry and dendroclimatological and dendroarchaeological research.