MSU graduate student’s app fights illegal logging worldwide
Contact: Vanessa Beeson
STARKVILLE, Miss.—A Mississippi ĸgraduate student is helping inspectors across the world identify timber species and combat illegal logging with a new smartphone application.
Inspired by Asi Ebeheakey, a sustainable bioproducts doctoral student from Accra, Ghana, and developed as part of Kyatt Spessert’s master’s research in sustainable bioproducts, the innovative app WhatWood? provides a digital alternative to traditional wood-identification manuals used in Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean and Ghana by placing a dependable, field-ready resource in the palms of users’ hands.
As a former inspector with the Timber Industry Development Division of Ghana’s Forestry Commission, Ebeheakey helped develop the original identification manual the app’s Ghanaian version is based on in 2018 in partnership with Alex Wiedenhoeft of the USDA Forest Service Forest Products Lab. That experience led her to pursue a doctoral degree at MSU.
By correctly identifying wood quickly and effectively, Ebeheakey said inspectors can make an impact on illegal logging and the export of illegally prohibited or mislabeled wood.
“The app makes wood identification easier by allowing inspectors to navigate with one hand instead of flipping through a manual. It also includes quizzes to help those without a wood science background reinforce their training,” Ebeheakey said. “This tool ensures inspectors can quickly and accurately verify wood species in the field.”
Spessert, an Elkins, West Virginia, native who grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Alabama before going to work for the National Hardwood Lumber Association. His background in forest products, Spessert said, drew him to pursue a master’s degree in MSU’s College of Forest Resources.
“Everyone on my dad’s side of the family is in forest products, so it was a natural path for me,” Spessert said. “I developed an app for the NHLA hardwood grading book. That’s where I connected with Dr. Frank Owens, an associate professor in the MSU Department of Sustainable Bioproducts, who recruited me as a student. For wood identification, specifically, I found the work here at Mississippi ĸinteresting.”
WhatWood? is free to download for iOS and Android devices at their respective app stores.
Both Spessert and Ebeheakey are part of the sustainable bioproducts department’s artificial intelligence and forensic wood identification research program directed by Owens, who serves as a scientist at MSU’s Forest and Wildlife Research Center. The center is home to the David A. Kribs Wood Collection, one of the largest wood collections in North America. Visit for more information.
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