This seminar series explored how data science can help increase our understanding of wildfire. In recent years, wildfire has gone from an infrequent and distant news item to a centerstage isssue spanning many consecutive weeks for urban and suburban communities.
Frequent wildfires are changing everyday lives for California in numerous ways -- from public safety power shutoffs to hazardous air quality -- that seemed inconceivable as recently as 2015. Moreover, elevated wildfire risk in the western United States (and similar climates globally) is here to stay into the foreseeable future.
There is a plethora of problems that need solutions in the wildland fire arena; many of them are well suited to a data-driven approach. In this seminar series, co-sponsored by the Stanford Data Science Initiative and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, we heard from several Stanford researchers about how their areas of interest require a data-driven approach to find solutions to pressing wildfire problems. Each speaker presented a short 20-minute overview of a particular problem of interest, followed by a 30-minute Q&A session in hopes to create a dialog about data-driven wildland fire research.
Spring 2020-21
Mondays at 12:30pm – Seminars are held via Zoom. For log-in information contact Derek Fong at dfong@stanford.edu
April 5 | “Simultaneous management of fire risk, carbon storage, and human and ecosystem co-benefits”
Chris Field, Director, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University
April 12 | “Zombie Forests: Fire Risk of the Standing Dead in the Sierra Nevada”
Avery Hill, PhD Candidate, Dept. of Biology, Stanford University
April 19 | “Data-Driven forest dryness monitoring”
Krishna Rao, PhD Candidate, Dept. of Earth System Science, Stanford University
April 26 | “Health Impacts of Smoke Exposure: What do we know?”
Mary Prunicki Sr. Research Scientist, Sean Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research, Stanford University
May 3 | “The Clean Air Act and wildfire smoke: What are the options?”
Michael Wara, Director, Climate and Energy Policy Program, Stanford University
May 10 | “Better measures of outdoor and indoor exposure to wildfire smoke”
Marshall Burke, Deputy Director, Center on Food Security and the Environment, Stanford University
May 17 | “Trends in California Wildfire-related Legislature, 2001-2020”
Rebecca Miller, PhD Candidate, Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, Stanford University
May 24 | “Using public records to study wildfires”
Iris Hui, Senior Researcher, Bill Lane Center for the American West, Stanford University
Formore information, please contact Derek Fong at dfong@stanford.edu
