Sally Aitken (academic)

For the film director and producer, see Sally Aitken (director).

Sally Nora Aitken
Spouse	Jack Woods
Academic background
Education	University of British Columbia (B.S.F, M.Sc.) University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Thesis	Population genetics of Pinus contorta on coastal and pygmy-forest sites in Mendocino County, California (1990)
Academic work
Discipline	Forestry, Conservation genetics
Institutions	University of British Columbia

Sally Nora Aitken FRSC (born 1961) is a Canadian environmentalist and academic. She has worked with government and industry to use knowledge from forest genetics research to forest management, tree breeding, and genetic conservation.

As of February 2024^[update] she is a professor at the University of British Columbia.

Early life and education

Sally Nora Aitken was born in 1961 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.[1]

In 1984 she obtained her B.Sc. from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver. following this she earned her M.Sc. in 1986 and Ph.D. in 1989, both from the University of California, Berkeley.[1][2]

Academic career

From 1991 to 1996 Aitken worked as a research assistant professor at Oregon State University in Corvallis in the United States.[1][2]

In 1996 she returned to UBC as assistant professor, being appointed associate professor in 2000, a position she held until 2005.[1] She held a position as a NSERC Industrial Research Chair at UBC.[2]

In 2001, Aitken helped start the Centre for Forest Conservation Genetics at UBC alongside Tongli Wang.[3]

Other projects and roles

Aitken has worked with government and industry to use knowledge from forest genetics research to forest management, tree breeding, and genetic conservation.[2]

In 2012, Aitken became a co-ordinator of the BC BigTree Registry, an online registry that documents big trees of each species in British Columbia.[4][5] She also initiated (with co-Project Leader Andreas Hamann and collaborators) a large-scale applied genomics project titled "AdapTree", which aimed to use genomics and climate-mapping technologies to help reforestation sites improve forest conditions, focussing on lodgepole pine and interior spruce.[6][7]

Recognition

In 2009, Aitken was awarded the Canadian Forestry Scientific Achievement Award[8] and a year later was awarded the UBC Killiam Teaching Prize.[9]

Due to her involvement with AdapTree, in 2014 Aitken was awarded the IUFRO Scientific Achievement Award for her research into the field of forest conservation genetics.[10] She was also named a Wall Scholar in the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies.[11]

In 2017, Aitken was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in the Life Science Division.[12]

In 2018, she was named the recipient of the Genome BC Award for Scientific Excellence by the non-profit organization LifeSciences BC.[13]

Other recognition and awards include:[14]

• 2010: UBC Killam Teaching Prize
• 2014: Wall Scholar, Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies

Selected publications

As of 2019, Aitken's publications are listed on WorldCat as follows:[15]

• Genetic relationships among wood quality, growth rates and seedling physiology in interior lodgepole pine (1999)
• Conservation and the genetics of populations (2013)

Personal life

Aitken married forestry professional Jack Woods.[16]

References

1. Teplyakov, Victor K. (2022). Outstanding Science and Service in IUFRO: Three Awards of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations: 1953–2020 (PDF). Seoul, Republic of Korea: MARU. p. 190. ISBN 978-89-97259-32-8.
2. "Will my forest look good in these genes?". pagse.org. Archived from the original on March 19, 2016. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
3. Sally N. Aitken; Jordan B. Bemmels (2016). "Time to get moving: assisted gene flow of forest trees". Evolutionary Applications. 9 (1): 271–290. Bibcode:2016EvApp...9..271A. doi:10.1111/eva.12293. PMC 4780373. PMID 27087852.
4. Jordan Chittley (September 30, 2014). "Tree huggers rejoice: B.C.'s largest trees now catalogued in online database". ctvnews.ca. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
5. "B.C. BigTree Registry wants your nominations". cbc.ca. October 17, 2014. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
6. Kimantas, Janet (April 2014). "The Forest's Next Move". alternativesjournal.ca. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
7. "UBC Forestry seeking trees with DNA to survive climate change". cbc.ca. September 2, 2015. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
8. "Canadian Forestry Scientific Achievement Award". cif-ifc.org. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
9. Barn, Allison (September 21, 2017). "Eight faculty members named Royal Society of Canada fellows". The Ubyssey. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
10. "Three forestry professors recognized for achievements". forestry.ubc.ca. 2014. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
11. "Sally Aitken". pwias.ubc.ca. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
12. "Congratulations to Sally Aitken for being named as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada". forestry.ubc.ca. 2017. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
13. "Sally Aitken named as 2018 recipient of the Genome BC Award for Scientific Excellence". forestry.ubc.ca. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
14. "Faculty Profile: Sally Aitken". UBC Faculty of Forestry. April 6, 2023. Retrieved February 3, 2024.
15. "au: Aitken, Sally N." worldcat.org. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
16. "FGC Annual Report 2016/17" (PDF). fgcouncil.bc.ca. p. 8. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 12, 2018. Retrieved April 17, 2019.

External links

• Sally Aitken at UBC