I am an ecologist who combines field and geospatial data and methods to study the pattern and process of ecological systems. I also strive to build bridges between science and social science.

What motivates my work is recognition of the complexity of the relationship of humans and ecological systems. These relationships and their emergent properties can be studied at different spatial scales and levels of organization. Knowledge gained from field studies, geospatial data, and analysis can be used to build models that help scientists and to understand the implications of human actions on the social and natural systems of which they are a part.

Awards and Grants:
Grants are listed below under research. Chair and PI of NSF funded workshop:  Coupled Human-Natural Systems, Poyang Lake China, 2007. Kathleen Bergen was Co-Chair of the NASA Workshop: Multi-Dimensional Forested Ecosystem Structure: Requirements for Remote Sensing, 2003. Kathleen Bergen was the organizer and Co-Chair of the NASA GOFC (Global Observation of Forest Cover) regional workshop on the Siberian/Far East boreal forest and remote sensing held at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Sukachev Forest Research Institute, Krasnoyarsk, Russia, in August 2002.

Current/Recent Research:

NSF: Planning Visit for U.S.-China-EU Research on Coupled Ecological and Human Dynamics at Poyang Lake Basin, China. PI with Co-Is Dan Brown, Shuming Bao, (NSF Office of International Science and Education).

University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment: Collaborative Seed Project to Enhance Forest Structure Research at UMBS. PI with Collaborator Leland Pierce.

The Impact of Temporal Decorrelation on InSAR Vegetation 3-D Structure Algorithms. NASA Terrestrial Ecology/Carbon Science. Co-I with PI Paul Siqueira, University of Massachusetts and Bruce Chapman, NASA JPL.

Land Dynamics, Social Vulnerability, and Ecological Effects of Flooding Under Policy and Environmental Change Around Poyang Lake, China. NASA Land-Cover/Land-Use Change. Co-I with PI Dan Brown and Shuming Bao.

Northern Michigan Productivity Across a Complex Landscape. USDA Forest Service MacIntire-Stennis. Co-PI with David Ellsworth.

Global Observation of Forest Cover (GOFC) International Workshop. NASA and START. PI.

Modeling Land-Cover Land-Use Change in Siberian Boreal Forests under Changing Economic Paradigms. NASA Carbon Cycle Science Program. PI with Co-PIs Dan Brown, Herman H. Shugart (Virginia), and Eric S. Kasischke (Maryland)

Hotspots of Land-Cover Change in the North Central Region. USDA Forest Service. Co-PI with Dan Brown.

An Integrated Geoecosystem-Remote Sensing Approach to Ecosystem Management of Aspen-Dominated Forests in Northern Lower Michigan. Co-I with Burt Barnes and Tom Crow (USDA)

Developing Land-Cover Scenarios in Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Michigan, USA: A Stochastic Simulation Approach. NASA Carbon Cycle Science Program. Co-I with Dan Brown (PI) and Pierre Goovaerts (Michigan).

Teaching Interests:

My teaching interests parallel my research interests (Biodiversity, Informatics, Remote Sensng), focusing on integrating ecological questions with tools for investigation at different scales.

Current/Recent Teaching:

NRE 501.034: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Informatics

NRE 441: Remote Sensing of Environment

Selected Publications:

• Luguang Jiang, K. Bergen, D.G. Brown, Q. Tian, Q. Shuhua and T. Zhao, 2008 in press. Land-Cover Change and Vulnerability to Flooding near Poyang Lake, Jiangxi Province, China, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing.

• Bergen, K.M., Zhao, T.T., Kharuk, V., Blam, Y., Brown, D.G. Peterson, L., Miller, N. 2008 in press. Changing Regimes: Forested Land-Cover Dynamics in Central Siberia 1974-2001. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing. 

• Bergen, K.M. and I. Dronova, 2007. Observing succession on aspen-dominated landscapes using a remote sensing-ecosystem approach, Landscape Ecology, 22(9): 1395-1410

• Bergen, K.M., A.M. Gilboy and D.G. Brown, 2007. Multi-dimensional vegetation structure in modeling avian habitat, Ecological Informatics, 2(1): 9-22.

• Zhao, T.T., D.G. Brown and K.M. Bergen, 2007. Increasing gross primary production (GPP) in the urbanizing landscapes of southeastern Michigan, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 73(10): 1159-1167.

• Multi-Dimensional Forested Ecosystem Structure: Requirements for Remote Sensing Observations. 2006. K. Bergen, R. Knox, and S. Saatchi, Editors. Final Report of the NASA Workshop held June 23-25 2003, Annapolis, MD. NASA GSFC Report NASA/CP-2005-212778

• Bergen, K.M., D.G. Brown, J. Rutherford, E. Gustafson. 2005. Change Detection with Heterogeneous Data using Ecoregional Stratification, Statistical Summaries and a Land Allocation Algorithm. Remote Sensing of Environment.

• Northern Eurasia. Chapter 5 in Land Change Science: Observing, Monitoring, and Understanding Trajectories of Change on the Earth's Surface. Krankina, O., Bergen, K., G. Sun et al. Dordrecht, Netherlands, Kluwer.

• Bergen, K., S. G. Conard, R. A. Houghton, E. S. Kasischke, S. Kharuk, O. Krankina, J. Ranson, H. H. Shugart, A. Sukhinin and R. F. Treyfeld. 2003. NASA and Russian scientists observe land-cover/land-use change and carbon in Russian forests. Journal of Forestry, June Special Issue on Technologies in Forestry.

• Krankina, O., K. M. Bergen, G. Sun, H. H. Shugart, V. I. Kharuk, J. G. Masek, W. B. Cohen, M. Duane and E. Kasiischke. 2003 in press. Northern Eurasia. Chapter 5 in Land Change Science: Observing, Monitoring, and Understanding Trajectories of Change on the Earth's Surface. Dordrecht, Netherlands, Kluwer.

• Bergen, K. M., E. Vaganov, G. Gutman and C. Justice. 2002. GOFC/GOLD Regional Workshop: GOFC/GOLD Information Products for Forest and Land Management in Siberia/Far East. The Earth Observer 14(6): 19-21.
• K.M. Bergen. Integrating Radar Remote Sensing into Biodiversity and Ecosystem Informatics. Proc. Digital Govt. 2002, May 2002, Los Angeles.
• K.M. Bergen, Brown, D.G., Rutherford, J., Gustafson, E. Hotspots of Land-Cover Change in the North-Central Region using USGS LUDA and NOAA AVHRR. Proc. IEEE IGARSS 2002, June 2002, Toronto.
• D. Karwan, D.A. Allan, K.M. Bergen, Changing Near-Stream Land Use and River Channel Morphology in the Venezuelan Andes. J. of Amer. Water Resources Assoc., Dec. 2002.
• K. M. Bergen, Guest Editor, Journal of Forestry Special Issue on Remote Sensing in Forestry, 98:6, 2000, 96 pp.
• K.M. Bergen, J. Colwell, and F. Sapio, Forestry and Remote Sensing: Collaborative Implementation. J. Forestry Special Issue, Remote Sensing in Forestry, 98:6, 2000, pp. 4-9.
• N. Roller and K.M. Bergen, ntegrating Forest Remote Sensing Data with other Data and Methods. for J. Forestry Special Issue on Remote Sensing in Forestry, 98:6, 2000, 61-63.
• K.M. Bergen and M.C. Dobson. Integration of Remotely Sensed Radar Imagery in Modeling and Mapping of Forest Biomass and Net Primary Production. Ecolog. Modelling, 122, pp. 257-274, 1999.
• E.S. Kasischke, K. Bergen, R. Fennimore, et al. Mapping the Severe 1998 Forest Fires in the Russian Far East using NOAA AVHRR Imagery. EOS, 1999.
• M.C. Dobson, and K.M. Bergen. Land-Cover Classification and Forest Biophysical Retrieval from SAR. Proc. Soc. Amer. Forest., 1999.
• K.M. Bergen and M.C. Dobson. Monitoring Forest Biomass, Harvest, and ANPP using SAR. Proc. Soc. Amer. Forest., 1999.
• L.E. Pierce, K.M. Bergen, M.C. Dobson, F.T. Ulaby. Multi-Temporal Land-Cover Classification Using SIR-C/X-SAR Imagery. Rem. Sens. Environ., 64:20-33, 1998.
• K.M. Bergen, M.C. Dobson, L.E. Pierce. Effects of Within-Season Dielectric Variations on Terrain Classification Using SIR-C/X-SAR. Proc. Int. Geosci. Rem. Sens. Symp., Singapore, CD-ROM, 1997.
• K.M. Bergen. Classification, Biomass Estimation, and Carbon Dynamics of a Northern Forest Using SIR-C/X-SAR Imagery. Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School, Ann Arbor, 168 pp., 1997.
• K.M. Bergen, M.C. Dobson, L.E. Pierce. Carbon Dynamics in Northern Forests using SIR-C/X-SAR Imagery. Proc. Int. Geosci. Rem. Sens. Symp., Lincoln, Nebraska, pp. 580-582, 1996.
• K.M. Bergen, L.E. Pierce, M.C. Dobson, F.T. Ulaby. A Multi-Temporal Classifier for SIR-C/X-SAR Imagery. Proc. Int. Geosci. Rem. Sens. Symp., Lincoln, Nebraska, pp. 1568-1570, 1996.
• M.C. Dobson, L.E. Pierce, K.M. Bergen, F.T. Ulaby. Temporal Stability of Northern Forest Biophysical Retrievals Using SIR-C/X-SAR. Proc. Int. Geosci. Rem. Sens. Symp., Lincoln, NB, pp. 1092-1094, 1996.
• K.M. Bergen, M.C. Dobson, T.L. Sharik, I. Brodie. Final Report: Structure, Composition, and Above-ground Biomass of SIR-C/X-SAR and ERS-1 Forest Test Stands 1991-1994, Raco Michigan Site. Radiation Laboratory Final Report, 036511-7-F, Radiation Laboratory, EECS Dept., The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, October 1995, 192pp.
• M.C. Dobson, F.T. Ulaby, L.E. Pierce, T.L. Sharik, K.M. Bergen, J. Kellndorfer, J.R. Kendra, E Li, Y.C. Lin, A. Nashashibi, K. Sarabandi, and P. Siqueira. Estimation of Forest Biophysical Characteristics in Northern Michigan with SIR-C/X-SAR. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Rem. Sens., Vol. 33, No. 4, July 1995.
• L.E. Pierce, M.C. Dobson, and K.M. Bergen. Land-Cover Classification Using SIR-C/X-SAR Data. Proc. Int. Geosci. Rem. Sens. Symp., Florence, Italy, June 1995, 3: 1234-6.
• K.M. Bergen, M.C. Dobson, L.E. Pierce, J.L. Kendra, J. Kellndorfer, and P. Siqueira. April 1994 SIR-C/X-SAR Mission: Ancillary Data Report Raco, Michigan Site. Radiation Laboratory Technical Report, 036511-5-T, Radiation Laboratory, EECS Dept., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, December, 1994, 138pp.
• K.M. Bergen, M.C. Dobson, L.E. Pierce, J. Kellndorfer, and P. Siqueira. October 1994 SIR-C/X-SAR Mission: Ancillary Data Report Raco, Michigan Site. Radiation Laboratory Technical Report, 036511-6-T, Radiation Laboratory, EECS Dept., The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, December, 1994, 167pp.
• M.C. Dobson, L.E. Pierce, K.M. Bergen. Retrieval of Above-Ground Biomass and Detection of Forest Disturbance. Proc. Int. Geosci. Rem. Sens. Symp., Florence, June 1995, 3:1602-4.
• K.M. Bergen. Hidden Cartographic Archives: Maps of the United States Serial Set. SLA Geog. Map Div. Bull., July, 1986, pp. 24-32.