University of Idaho rural sociologist J. D. Wulfhorst will coordinate social research including interviews, focus groups and workshops to understand perspectives in the region’s communities as part of the Regional Approaches to Climate Change in Pacific Northwest Agriculture project funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Professor and Chair of the Advisory Board for the Social Sciences Research Unit, Wulfhorst joined the University of Idaho College of Agricultural and Life Sciences faculty in 2000 after earning his doctorate in community and rural sociology from Utah State University in 1997. A leader of the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program, a multidisciplinary project with the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica, he spent a year at the Turrialba campus as a visiting professor. In 2006, Wulfhorst served as president of the Idaho Academy of Science, a state-based interdisciplinary chapter that pursues support and education for science-based activities as well as President of the Idaho Section of the Society for Range Management in 2010. He has also supported local and regional networking for sustainable conservation practices in agriculture.