CREAFTalk with Kristin Braziunas - Balancing fire risk, forest health, and ecosystem services for multi-objective forest management

Shifting baselines of climate and fire are threatening forest ecosystems, the services they provide, and human communities in the wildland urban interface. In this talk, Kristin will present case studies from the western United States highlighting how forest treatments affect subsequent wildfire in high biomass forests and how spatially contrasting management strategies affect trade-offs between fire risk and ecosystem services. Her work highlights how multiple approaches including remote sensing and forest ecological modeling, combined with collaborative partnerships with federal, state, and Tribal agencies, can facilitate planning for future forest social-ecological resilience.

Who is Kristin Braziunas?

Dr. Kristin Braziunas focuses on understanding forest and disturbance dynamics in the face of climate change, with an emphasis on mountain landscapes in the western United States and European Alps. Prior to her current position at the University of Washington, she was a postdoctoral researcher with the Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Management Group at the Technical University of Munich, and she completed her PhD (2021) and MS (2018) in Integrative Biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She previously worked for eight years in sustainability planning and as a Firefighter/Lieutenant for a municipal fire department.