J. Keith Gilless is a Professor Emeritus of Forest Economics in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, and the Former Dean of the Berkeley's Rausser College of Natural Resoures. He is currently serving on a recall appointment as the Interim Director of Berkeley's University and Jepson Herbaria.
Gilless served for more than a decade as the Chair of the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, and as a founding Co-Director of its Joint Institute for Wood Products Innovation.
Currently serving the Academic Senate as the Co-Chair of the Berkeley Committee on Faculty Welfare (FWEL), and Gilless also sits on the systemwide Faculty Welfare Committee and its Health Care Task Force. He represents the FWEL on the Advisory Board for the Campus Retirement Center and on the Board of Directors of the UC Berkeley Emeriti Association (for which he also serves as its Vice President). He has previously served on a wide variety of Academic Senate Committees and Task Forces, as well as as the Secretary of the Berkeley Division.
Gilless has been awarded the Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award and Faculty Service Award, and is a Fellow of the Society of American Foresters.
Prior to joining the Berkeley faculty in 1983, Gilless earned a Joint Ph.D. in Forestry and Agricultural Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (along with an M.S. in Forestry and an M.A. in Agricultural Economics), after earning a B.S. in Forestry at Michigan State University.
