BY BETTY ADAMS

Staff Writer

Growing up in the Pine Tree State fueled Brian Milakovsky with a love of forests.

Now his keen intellect, knowledge of Russian and forestry master's degree from Yale University has earned him a Fulbright scholarship to study the forests of Ukraine.

Milakovsky, 23, whose home is in Somerville, will be based at the National Agricultural University in Kiev, where he will work with foresters from the Ukrainian State Forestry Agency.

People may recognize him as the former Brian Miller, who graduated from Cony High School in 2003 and worked as an intern with the Augusta Bureau of Trees and Landscape in 2002. He since has changed his last name to the one he said his ancestors had when they lived in Belarus.

His parents are Dr. Roy Miller and Rep. Lisa Miller, D-Somerville.

Each year, the traditional Fulbright Scholar Program, operated through the U.S. Department of State, sends about 800 U.S. educators and professionals to 140 countries to lecture, research or participate in seminars; and also hosts others, according to its Web site, www.cies.org/us_scholars.

Milakovsky said he will study policies that protect the health of Ukrane's managed forests.

Milakovsky studied Russian at Yale and at the University of Maine. "I'm getting very close to fluency," he said. "I'm hoping while in Ukraine to get over the top and become fully fluent in Russian and start to tackle Ukrainian, too."

Milakovsky -- who is a licensed intern forester in Maine and writes management plans for small woodlots -- spent last summer in Karelia, Russia, near Finland, reporting for a company that manages millions of acres of forest on how its forest management policies were working, and how to improve them.

"They had good policies to protect biodiversity," he said. "I hope to do forestry consulting in that part of the world. There's a lot of really great work there for a forester who has worked in our system here and who understands the way things work over there."

Along with his forestry work, Milakovsky sings tenor in the all-male Yale Russian Chorus, which presents sacred and folk music of Russian and Ukraine.

Lloyd Irland, lecturer and senior research scientist in forestry and environmental studies at Yale, who lives in Wayne, had high praise for Milakovsky's work.

"He's one of our prizes, and my colleagues agree," Irland said. "He has a good grasp of the practical side of forest management and is interested in boosting the environmental side. He's really motivated, and going to a place where he has some strong connections emotionally.

"One of my big regrets is that I was always away and never got to see him perform with the Yale Russian Chorus."

Irland said he recently asked to see Milakovsky's report from his summer in Karelia.

"It's in Russian," Milakovsky told him.

Professor Sergiy Zibtsev at the National Agriculture University in Kiev, who once was a Fulbright scholar at Yale, has offered to find some office accommodation for Milakovsky, Irland said.

Irland said Milakovsky for the past two years has presented papers for the Intertribal Timber Council, a trade association of 50 U.S. Indian tribes who own and manage forests.

Irland, who has studied forestry in Ukraine as well, said Milakovsky will find trees of the same genus as in Maine and similar species, with a lot of Norway spruce added.

"This is going to be such a wonderful opportunity," Irland said.

Betty Adams -- 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com