SUNY ESF
M.E. Program Co-Directors

Lindi Quackenbush, chair of ESF's department of Environmental Resources and Engineering (ERE) and co-director of the Master of Engineering in ERE (M.E.) has been employed at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) in Syracuse, NY since 1998, serving as a Research Assistant (1998–2001), Lecturer (2001–2004), Assistant Professor (2004–2011), and Associate Professor (2011–2018) before moving into her current position as an Chair and Professor in 2019. Her research interests cover a range of image processing and remote sensing application areas including forestry-related topics, such as developing tools to support forest classification and invasive species management, urban management subjects such as object-oriented algorithms for impervious surface classification and linear feature extraction, and water-focused topics such as riparian zone characterization. Lindi grew up in Australia and received B.Surv. and B.Sci. degrees from The University of Melbourne in 1994. She moved to the US in 1995 and earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in remote sensing and image processing from SUNY-ESF in 1998 and 2004, respectively. She also spent a year (1993) as an exchange student at the University of Maine in Orono, where she learned to appreciate cold weather.

ERE graduate and professional engineer David Gerber '88 is returning to campus as the M.E. program co-director along with the ERE Department Chair, Dr. Quackenbush. Gerber, who has a Master of Engineering Management from George Washington University, is a former member of the ERE Advisory Council and an emeritus member of the ESF College Foundation Board of Directors. He currently serves as senior vice president at Arcadis, U.S., a global design, engineering, and management consulting company.

As program co-director, Gerber will advise the M.E. students and teach four professional practice and engineering project management courses. His weekly Professional Experience class is designed to connect each student uniquely to some aspect of the engineering business world. "During these one-on-one or small group meetings, I will serve as the conduit between the students and the professional world," he explained. Sessions will involve research, discussion and personalized advising on career goals and opportunities. "We will work together to design a structured professional development plan that works for each individual student and aligns with where they are on their career path," said Gerber.