Dr. Diane H. Kiernan is an expert on forest biometrics and growth and yield modeling, and is an experienced writer for textbooks of applied statistics. She has been teaching the course Introductory Statistics to sophomore students at SUNY-ESF over the last five years, and has been recently assigned to teach the biometrics / applied statistics course at a junior / senior level to a wide range of majors in the college.

The purposes of this textbook are (1) to review basic concepts and methods that the students have learned in the Introductory Statistics course such as descriptive statistics, confidence intervals, and one-sample and two-samples hypothesis testing, (2) to teach the fundamental concepts, principles, and methods of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and simple and multiple linear regression analysis, (3) to introduce students to statistical software such as Minitab and Microsoft Excel for data analysis and statistical computing with real world examples, and (4) to cover some topics related to forest and natural resources management, such as site index curves, stand density management diagrams, stocking charts, volume tables, forest growth and yield models, species diversity, etc.

Given her extensive teaching experience, Dr. Kiernan presents the fundamental concepts, principles, and methods of statistics in “layman” English, without mathematical proofs on the theories. Instead she provides clear and logical explanation and demonstration on how to apply these statistical theories and methods to solve the problems and answer the questions that the students may encounter in their studies and practices. The examples used in the textbook are closely related to forestry, biology, water, wildlife, environment, as well as social sciences. The textbook is most suitable to a one-semester course for the curriculums of forest and natural resources management, forest biology, forest ecosystem sciences.

Dr. Lianjun Zhang, Ph.D.

Dr. Lianjun Zhang obtained his Ph.D. in forest biometrics and forest growth and yield modeling in 1990 and M.S. in statistics in 1991 from the University of Idaho. He has been a faculty member in the Department of Forest and Natural Resources Management, SUNY-ESF since 1994, and a full professor since 2004. Dr. Zhang used to teach the course of forest biometrics to undergraduate students, but now mainly teach applied statistical courses to graduate students. Dr. Zhang was an associate editor of biometrics and growth modeling for Canadian Journal of Forest Research for 9 years and currently an associate editor of biometrics for Forest Science.