As a wildfire researcher with a background in disaster preparation and mitigation, Kristina is keenly aware of the complexity of how modern society interacts with the natural world. Kristina is a graduate student studying wildfire at the Univ. of California, Santa Barbara within the Geography department. Kristina leverages experience in civil engineering and coastal flood response to bring a unique perspective to the field of wildfire and disaster response. Kristina is working to understand the complex and coupled relationship which people and the built environment have with the natural world in the hope of one day improving it. Kristina's present work involves the flammability of live plants under varying water stress and they also regularly communicate with wildfire professionals to maintain a broad perspective on the field.

Qian is a PhD student in Hazard & Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina. Her research mixes GIScience and social science to examine the spatial and temporal diffusion of COVID-19 cases and fatalities, and to investigate its interactions with natural hazards such as hurricane, flooding, and wildfires. Outside of research, Qian hosts open-source map-a-thons and chairs a university committee for geography graduate students.

Sara Lafia is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography from UC Santa Barbara. Her current research is analyzing curation activities, detecting data citations, and developing metrics to track the impact of data reuse. She also enjoys developing geospatial applications, engineering linked data models, and designing data visualizations.

Jackie’s research focuses on the effects of climate change, forest disturbances, and land management in mountain forest ecosystems. Important themes in her research include the direct and indirect consequences of climate change and land-use in mountain forest ecosystems, effects of climate change on forest dieback, and post-disturbance regeneration. Jackie’s dissertation research focuses on the degree to which climate change is affecting post-disturbance regeneration for lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) forests in the Southern Rocky Mountains. She creates predictive models using historical and current data from the western United States to understand how climate change will impact the at-risk communities in the wildland-urban interface under future climate conditions. Additionally, Jackie is completing a Graduate Pursuit Fellowship with the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC). Her project focuses on integrating large geospatial datasets and models to answer environmental justice research questions.