Manisha Parajuli
Assistant Professor of Forestry
Academic Affairs
College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources
400 East Main Street
Frankfort, KY 40601
Contact:
Phone: (864) 533 2246
Email: Manisha.Parajuli@kysu.edu
Bio:
Dr. Manisha Parajuli is a forestry professional with experience in forest resource management, forest operations, soil conservation, and environmental monitoring. Her expertise includes forest management planning, timber harvesting operations, monitoring of forestry best management practices (BMPs), erosion assessment, and the control of competing vegetation. Her research focuses on identifying key challenges and opportunities in forest management and developing practical, science-based solutions to support informed decision-making by forest landowners, foresters, and other stakeholders.
Her current projects include soil erosion modeling, evaluation of forestry BMPs and water quality, timber harvesting and logging productivity, log transportation efficiency, and the restoration of abandoned mine land ecosystems. She also explores sustainable resource management through the potential use of invasive plant biomass, logging residues, and agricultural waste repurposing. Dr. Parajuli focuses on incorporating advanced tools and technologies-including UAVs, LiDAR, GIS, and deep learning-into traditional forestry systems to identify cost-effective and time-efficient approaches that enhance forest management and operational planning. Dr. Parajuli’s scholarly work has been published in leading journals, including Forest Ecology and Management, Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, International Journal of Forest Engineering, Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering, Environmental Management, and Forest Products.
Dr. Parajuli is passionate about extension and dedicated to educating forest landowners, foresters, farmers, and other stakeholders on sustainable forest resource management. She has published several peer-reviewed journal articles and peer-reviewed extension articles, and has delivered numerous presentations to groups of landowners, logging business owners, and forestry professionals on topics such as timber harvesting, biomass utilization and its potential for bioenergy, and the application of UAVs for monitoring BMPs.
Dr. Parajuli is an active member of the Society of American Foresters (SAF), the Council on Forest Engineering (COFE), and Greenhood Nepal.
Students
Nischal Sapkota, MS in Environmental Studies (Chair)
Ashmita Bhandari, MS in Environmental Studies (Chair)
Akinleye, Ayobami, MS in Environmental Studies (Committee-Member)