Dr. Paul Knapp, professor of geography, environment, and sustainability, receives the Senior Research Excellence Award for his innovative work in biogeography and climatology using dendroecological techniques.
In the field and at his Carolina Tree-Ring Science Laboratory, Knapp uses tree-ring data to reconstruct centuries of environmental conditions and help scientists better understand complex atmospheric and forest ecological dynamics. His work explores how human activities affect environments and how climate affects human well-being.
Knapp is known by his peers for innovative work advancing the frontiers of biogeography, climatology, and dendrochronology and impacting environmental understanding and climate science, locally, nationally, and internationally. The important research has drawn over $1.3 million in funding over his career, from organizations including the NSF, USDA, Bureau of Land Management, and the NC Policy Collaboratory.
He has published over 92 peer-reviewed articles over his career — 62 in his 21 years at UNCG — and amassed nearly 3,000 citations. Over the last 15 years, he has published three to six papers a year. His research appears in top-tier disciplinary journals such as Global Change Biology, Global Environmental Change, and Annals of the American Association of Geographers, which is one of geography’s flagship journals — as well as in prestigious interdisciplinary outlets.
The diversity of journals in which Knapp’s publications appear reflects the wide, multidisciplinary impact of his research explorations.
