I joined the PLPG in the summer of 2019 as a research associate, where I now lead our fire and forest governance research while also serving as the lab manager. My work focuses on investigating decision-making during wildfire incidents, identifying policy opportunities to increase prescribed fire, and exploring cross-boundary partnership efforts related to U.S. forestlands.

Before joining PLPG, I worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, conducting visitor-use surveys at several National Wildlife Refuges across the country. I also worked as a social scientist for the Center for Adaptable Western Landscapes. In 2017, I earned my M.S. in Environmental Sciences and Policy from Northern Arizona University, following my B.S. in Natural Resources Management at Colorado State University, where I am proud to return as an alumna.

I was brought on to the Public Lands Policy Group as a research associate in the winter of 2022 to investigate post-fire management priorities of Tribes in the Western United States. This research is concerned with informing post-fire management and policy so that it is more responsive to Tribal priorities.

In 2022 I received my PhD in Public Communication and Technology from the Department of Journalism and Media Communication at Colorado State University. My research interests center on the communication practices of land management professionals and how these practices inform and are informed by institutional policy.

In the fall of 2019 and spring of 2020, I traveled to the Southwest to conduct interviews with land managers from the

I joined the Public Lands Policy Group at the start of 2023 as a research associate focused on climate change adaptation. My work centers on adaptation actions, policy options, barriers, learnings, and more to enhance societal and environmental resilience. Within the PLPG, I research adaptation in the context of public lands and forest management and support the CSU Climate Initiative, as well as other climate-related programming at CSU.

Before coming to CSU, I was a consultant within the Adaptation Division at UN Climate Change, investigating climate communication efforts and developing technical and information papers about adaptation at global and national levels. In 2019, I received my M.S. in Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation from Lund University’s Faculty of Engineering. My B.A. is in International Studies, with a focus

In 2022, I joined the Public Lands Policy Group as a master’s level graduate student. After two incredible years, I am continuing my tenure with the PLPG as a research associate, where I can continue investigating the policies that govern post-wildfire response and recovery, and the use of wildfire risk-based decision support tools and analytics.

I was born and raised in Southern Arizona and went to Northern Arizona University, where I got my B.S. in forestry and a wildfire ecology and management certificate. Throughout my undergraduate studies, I had the opportunity to participate in several research projects. The most influential project investigated the feasibility of wood-based infrastructure in the earthquake-prone Himalayas. This project brought my interests in environmental policies, governance, climate adaptation and resilience, and collective action together into fulfilling work.

I joined the PLPG in July 2024. I have an MA in sociology from the University of Cincinnati, a PhD in sociology at Colorado State University, and I recently completed a post-doctoral appointment at Michigan State University.

I come into the lab background in energy impacts, demography, rural development, health and well-being, research methods, governance, and sustainability. Most recently, I’ve evaluated the impacts of hydro power projects on communities in the Brazilian Amazon and considered prospects for a “just transition” for natural resource dependent communities in the rural U.S. I’m eager to apply my skillset to questions of public land management in the U.S.

I joined CSU and the Public Land Policy Group in September 2024 as a research associate and Program Manager for the Climate Adaptation Partnership. Building on my previous research on water governance, mining policy, and global supply chains in Latin America, I study multi-stakeholder collaboration for climate change adaptation. Here’s a link to my work!

Before joining CSU, I was an associate professor at the School for Government and Public Administration at the National Institute for Advanced Studies in Ecuador. In this role, I coordinated a specialization in Public Management, a Master’s in Local Public Management and Sustainability, and the Local Governance & Sustainability—LGSLab.

I became a part of the PLPG in the spring of 2022 as a postdoctoral research associate affiliated with the Climate Adaptation Partnership (CAP) at CSU. The CAP is an exciting and relatively new venture at CSU that is centered on cultivating transdisciplinary collaboration among campus faculty to tackle the pressing climate related challenges facing Colorado, the nation, and the world in the 21st Century.

I completed my doctorate in the Department of Environment and Society at Utah State University in late 2021. My research was centered in water policy and governance, with particular focus on the human dimensions and water security implications of water reallocation policy in the Intermountain West. While my research centered on specific attributes of water reallocation, my interests include water security at multiple institutional and physical scales, understanding human behavior in water and land use, and the intersection of

water and land management policies in the western states. My doctorate is a deviation in my formal academic training, as I earned my BS (Iowa State University, Go Cyclones!) and MS (Northern Illinois University) in geology and an MSc in hydrology at the Colorado School of Mines.

Prior to my doctoral program at USU, I worked as a hydrogeologist in the private and public sectors for over 15 years in Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming. I was blessed to have worked on some amazing projects that incorporated cutting edge groundwater modeling and geophysical tools and strategies. Yet all the while during this work I knew that I eventually wanted to steer my career in the direction of natural resources policy. I’m thrilled to be part of the PLPG and CAP and the amazing research community at CSU!

I began working with PLPG in the summer of 2023. I currently focus on Shared Stewardship and its integration with the recent Wildfire Crisis Strategy. I am particularly interested in the translation of science to policy and how that policy is effectively and equitably implemented on the ground, especially when it comes to forest management and wildfire.

I grew up in Southern Oregon and am well (and perhaps over) acquainted with wildfire. After finishing my Bachelor’s Degree in Theater Studies at Yale University, I spent several years working in the Oregon State Legislature. I focused primarily on forestry, wildfire, and environmental policy work. From there, I began pursuing dual Master’s Degrees in Forestry and Environmental Management at Duke University with a concentration in Environmental Economics and Policy. While at Duke, I have researched and written papers on fuel breaks and

I joined the PLPG in fall 2019 as a postdoctoral researcher working on an NSF Macrosystems Biology project, where we are investigating the relative influence of management on U.S. forests at regional to continental scales. I am interviewing forest experts throughout the U.S. to understand past, current, and potential future drivers of forest management, and working with modelers to incorporate this information into our understanding of the ecosystem structure, composition, and function of future U.S. forests.

I completed my PhD in early 2019 in the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona, where my dissertation was entitled, “Incentives, Livelihoods, and Forest Ecology: Payments for Ecosystem Services in Guatemala’s Western Highlands.” Using a mixed methods approach of interviews, participant observation, and forest carbon plots, I investigated how national forestry incentives in Guatemala

shift governance, management practices, access to resources and forest carbon storage potential. My overarching research interests combine the fields of political ecology, environmental governance, ecosystem service science, critical physical geography, and natural resource management.  Before graduate school, I completed a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Rice University in Houston and worked as a biological technician for several public land agencies in New Mexico and California.

Growing up in Michigan enjoying the public forests and lakeshores nearby inspired me to earn a B.S. degree at CSU in Natural Resource Recreation and Tourism. I applied my degree for the next few years working for NGOs and state and federal land management agencies on many different habitat restoration, fire mitigation, social science, and trail projects on public lands across Colorado and Nevada.

I earned my M.S. degree at the University of Idaho studying people’s attitudes about forest management after pine beetle outbreaks in Grand County, CO. My Ph.D. research at Oregon State University investigated people’s perceptions of post-wildfire landscape recovery and the implications for forest and wildfire management. My post-doc work at Oregon State University, University of Oregon, and Great Basin Institute focused on human dimensions of various natural resource issues, including wildfire management,

collaborative land management, recreation management on public lands, and residents’ attitudes about tourism.

I am excited to be back at CSU and working with Dr. Courtney Schultz’ Public Lands Policy Group as the Wildfire Management Research Program Lead! We are using social science to research wildfire risk management tools, collaboration and shared stewardship, and other issues and policies being implemented by land managers and communities across the U.S.