Virginia Dale

Virginia H. Dale, PhD is a mathematical ecologist who uses a landscape perspective to understand patterns and processes. Her research interests include environmental decision making, forest succession, effects of climate change, land-use change, landscape ecology, ecological modeling, and sustainability of bioenergy systems.  She is a Corporate Fellow in the Environmental Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee and was selected as the 2006 Distinguished Scientist for the Laboratory, where she is currently Director of the Center for BioEnergy Sustainability.  She was among the members of the science community that contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Scientific Assessment that in 2007 received the Nobel Peace Prize. Virginia completed her PhD at the University Washington just in time to be able to join the first group on ecologists entering the “Red Zone” after the eruption of Mount St. Helens. She continues to monitor vegetation reestablishment on permanent plots she established there more than three decades ago. She often refers to herself as a disturbance ecologist, for she studies natural and human changes on many landscapes. Virginia has enjoyed sharing her expertise by service on national scientific advisory boards for five federal agencies (the Environmental Protection Agency and US Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, and Interior) and on several committees of the US National Research Council. For thirteen years, Virginia was Editor-in-Chief of the journal Environmental Management and still serves on the editorial board of several journals. Virginia has been active in her community as a scout leader, soccer coach, and protecting ecosystem services and was selected as a Top Citizen of Oak Ridge. Her son is an aerospace engineer, and her daughter works on environmental policy and is mother to a vivacious girl and has a second child due in July.  Virginia enjoys traveling to visit family and to explore new areas and swims wherever the water is warm.

Selected Publications

Dale VH, Parish ES, Kline KL. 2015. Risks to global biodiversity from fossil-fuel production exceed those from biofuel production. Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining 9(2):177-189.

Pollesch N and Dale VH. 2015. Applications of aggregation theory to sustainability assessment. Ecological Economics 114: 117-127.

Dale VH, Kline KL, Kaffka SR, Langeveld JWA. 2013. A landscape perspective on sustainability of agricultural systems. Landscape Ecology 28:1111-1123.

Dale VH and Kline KL. 2013. Issues in using landscape indicators to assess land changes. Ecological indicators 28:91-99.

Dale VH et al. 2013. Indicators for assessing socioeconomic sustainability of bioenergy systems: A short list of practical measures. Ecological Indicators 26:87-102

Dale VH, Efroymson EA, Kline KL. 2011. The land use- climate change –  energy nexus. Landscape Ecology 26:755-773.

Dale VH et al. 2011. Interactions among bioenergy feedstock choices, landscape dynamics and land use.  Ecological Applications 21:1039-1054.

McBride A et al. 2011. Indicators to support environmental sustainability of bioenergy systems. Ecological Indicators 11:1277-1289.

Dale, V.H., Wright, D., Kling, C.L., (et.al). 2010. Hypoxia in the Northern Gulf of Mexico. New York: Springer.

Kline KL and Dale VH. 2008. Biofuels, causes of land-use change, and the role of fire in greenhouse gas emissions. Science 321:199.

Robertson et al. 2008. Sustainable Biofuels Redux. Science 322(5898): 49–50.

Dale, VH and Polasky S. 2007. Measures of the effects of agricultural practices on ecosystem services. Ecological Economics 64:286-296.

Dale, V.H., Swanson, F.J., and Crisafulli, C.M. (editors). 2005. Ecology Responses to the 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens. New York: Springer.

Dale, V.H. (editor). 2003. Ecological modeling for resource management. New York: Springer ( http://www.esd.ornl.gov/programs/SERDP/EcoMod/ ).

Dale, V.H. and English, M.R. (editors). 1999. Tools to Aid Environmental Decision Making. New York: Springer.

Dale, V.H. (editor). 1994. Effects of Land Use Change on Atmospheric CO₂ Concentrations: Southeast Asia as a Case Study. New York: Springer.

Forman, RT., V.H. Dale and others. 2003. Road Ecology: Science and Solutions. Island Press.

Dale, V.H. and Haeuber, R.A. (editors). 2001. Applying Ecological Principles to Land Management.New York: Springer.