Matthew Barnicki joined the UT Tree Improvement Program as a freshman and is currently the Undergraduate Student Foreman. He trains and supervises undergraduate students new to the program and assists with tasks including data collection, plant propagation and maintenance, seed and scion collection, and surveys the Tennessee landscape to locate trees of selected species for inclusion in seed orchards.

Matthew is pursuing bachelor’s degrees in Forestry and Soil Science at UT Knoxville. In summer 2020, he did an internship with UT-TIP locating scion/cutting source trees for six species in southern Middle Tennessee, which has resulted in grafted seed orchards located at the Jack Daniel Distillery and UT Southern’s East Campus. Other projects with UT-TIP have included locating hemlocks in northeastern Tennessee and propagating them as rooted cuttings. Using historic records, Matthew inventoried a 1940s TVA tree crop planting on Norris Reservation as part of an undergraduate research project. Other college experiences have included work at the East Tennessee State Nursery, wildland firefighting in Idaho, measuring trees in Guatemala for a carbon-storage estimation project with the organization ICC, and measuring experimental chestnut plantings. Matthew’s immediate goal is to become a consulting forester, hoping to keep forestland undeveloped by helping landowners profit from the values of their forestland, while ensuring that vigorous trees are left to comprise a future stand after harvest. He also wants to start his own fruit and nut orchards someday and perhaps a plant nursery.