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Wildfire Experts

Experts from University of California San Diego are available to discuss wildfire and related topics including climate science; fire management and wildfire prevention; insurance, economic, policy and public health impacts of wildfires and wildfire smoke; electrical grid management; environmental justice; and AI-driven wildfire technology and tools.

Economics and Policy

Judson Boomhower

Environmental economist, Department of Economics

Area of Expertise:

Wildfire risks and impacts the economics and regulatory issues associated with building in high fire hazard areas; the importance of building codes in improving resilience to wildfires; preventive power shutoffs; climate change and the homeowners insurance crisis.

Media Contact

Richard Carson

Environmental economist, Department of Economics

Area of Expertise:

The economic impacts of natural disasters, including wildfires; and the economic implications of the ties between wildfires and climate change, urban development, electric reliability and evacuation planning

Media Contact

Tom Corringham

Climate economist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Area of Expertise:

Understanding the economic impacts of climate change and extreme weather events including wildfires, catastrophic floods, atmospheric rivers, El Niño, and more

Media Contact

Kyle Handley

Economist at the School of Global Policy and Strategy

Area of Expertise:

Wildfires risk and uncertainty and how they affect financial and insurance markets

Media Contact

David Victor

Professor of Innovation and Public Policy at the School of Global Policy and Strategy

Area of Expertise:

Impacts wildfire and other extreme events linked to climate change have on financial markets, public policy, such as federal disaster relief. Impacts wildfires/natural disasters have on international climate negotiations and how insurance and investment strategies affect resilience against natural hazards

Media Contact

Michael Reher

Financial Economist at the Rady School of Management

Area of Expertise:

Real estate and the ability of mortgage, real estate and commodity markets to forecast weather and climate shocks

Media Contact

Public Health and Health Care

Tarik Benmarhnia

Climate change epidemiologist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Area of Expertise:

Wildfire and climate impacts on public health; environmental justice

Media Contact

Jyoti Mishra

Associate Professor In Residence, Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine; Director of the Neural Engineering and Translation Labs at UC San Diego; associate director of the UC Climate and Mental Health Initiative

Area of Expertise:

Mental health trauma after wildfire, wildfire impacts on cognitive functioning, climate anxiety

Media Contact

Gentry Patrick

Director, Center for Empathy and Social Justice in Human Health; Kavli and Dr. William and Marisa Rastetter Chancellor's Endowed Chair in Neurobiology

Area of Expertise:

Empathy during natural disasters

Media Contact

Carlos Gould

Assistant Professor, UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science

Area of Expertise:

Environmental health; climate and health; air pollution; clean energy; environmental epidemiology; exposure science; health effects of wildfire smoke

Media Contact

Charles E. Daniels

Chief Pharmacy Officer, UC San Diego Health, and Professor, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Area of Expertise:

Obtaining prescription medications during an emergency

Media Contact

Jeanne Lee, MD

Director, UC San Diego Health Regional Burn Center

Area of Expertise:

Treatment management within San Diego County’s only Burn Center, traumatic injuries with severe burn, advanced trauma life support, advanced burn life support, the latest advancements in burn injury treatment and emergency preparedness; can also provide education about the Western Region Burn Consortium in which Burn Centers in California and the western states collaborate in the event of an emergency

Media Contact

Theodore Chan, MD

Chair of emergency medicine, UC San Diego Health

Area of Expertise:

Emergency care for life-threatening injuries or severe health conditions, as well as preparing for and responding to disasters

Media Contact

Jay Doucet, MD

Chief, Division of Trauma, Surgical Critical Care, Burns, Acute Care Surgery

Area of Expertise:

Trauma and surgical critical care, mass trauma and the management of patient transfers, state-of-the-art ultrasound techniques while treating traumatic injuries and blood transfusion

Media Contact

Laura Haines, MD

Trauma Medical Director, UC San Diego Health

Area of Expertise:

Treatment of traumatic injuries or severe burns, general surgery and surgical critical care

Media Contact

Jess Mandel, MD

Chief, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, UC San Diego Health

Area of Expertise:

Health effects of smoke inhalation and poor air quality on the lungs, critical care medicine and pulmonary vascular medicine

Media Contact

California Climate and Climate Change

Daniel Cayan

Research meteorologist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego

Area of Expertise:

California climate, climate change connections to wildfire, drought

Media Contact

Rachel Clemesha

Project scientist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego

Area of Expertise:

Marine layer clouds and California coastal climate, interplay of marine layer clouds and heat waves

Media Contact

Sasha Gershunov

Research meteorologist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego

Area of Expertise:

California climate, precipitation and drought, heat waves, marine layer clouds, atmospheric rivers, Santa Ana winds, extreme weather and climate impacts on wildfire

Media Contact

Julie Kalansky

Climate scientist and operations manager, Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes and California-Nevada Applications Program at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego

Area of Expertise:

California climate, climate change connections to wildfire, drought, atmospheric rivers

Media Contact

David Pierce

Climate scientist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego

Area of Expertise:

El Nino and La Nina forecasting and impacts, attribution of human-caused climate change in Western U.S. snowpack and streamflow, natural climate variability

Media Contact

Marty Ralph

Research meteorologist and Director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego

Area of Expertise:

Western weather, atmospheric rivers, California water supply and reservoir management, Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations

Media Contact

Morgan Levy

Environmental scientist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and School of Global Policy and Strategy

Area of Expertise:

Hydrology (movement, distribution and management of water), water resources, drought, water cycle causes and consequences of wildfires

Media Contact

Jennifer Burney

Environmental scientist, School of Global Policy and Strategy

Area of Expertise:

Wildfire smoke impacts to air pollution, human health and air quality

Media Contact

Marine Ecosystem Impacts

Julie Dinasquet

Associate Project Scientist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Area of Expertise:

How wildfires influence the marine environment; how scientists at sea can study wildfire impacts to marine ecosystems

Media Contact

Rasmus Swalethorp

CalCOFI Director of Ship Operations, Associate Project Scientist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Area of Expertise:

How wildfires influence the marine environment; how scientists at sea can study wildfire impacts to marine ecosystems

Media Contact

Dante Capone

PhD Candidate, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Area of Expertise:

How wildfires influence the marine environment; rapid response effort to sample ocean conditions after a wildfire and runoff after a rain event; how the smoke and ash are impacting air and water quality

Media Contact

Jennifer Burney

Environmental scientist, School of Global Policy and Strategy

Area of Expertise:

Wildfire smoke impacts to air pollution, human health and air quality

Media Contact

ALERTCalifornia

UC San Diego’s ALERTCalifornia public safety program currently manages a growing network of more than 1,140 cameras (as of January 2025) across the state. Emergency managers as well as the public are utilizing these cameras day and night to monitor wildfires, atmospheric rivers, flooding, and other natural hazards.

ALERTCalifornia’s high-definition cameras are able to pan, tilt, zoom and perform 360-degree sweeps approximately every two minutes. The cameras also provide 24-hour monitoring with near-infrared night vision capabilities. Each can view as far as 60 miles on a clear day, and 120 miles on a clear night. Using the cameras and associated AI tools, first responders with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), and other federal, state, and local government agencies can rapidly confirm fire ignition, quickly scale fire resources, support evacuations through enhanced situational awareness and monitor fires through containment. ALERTCalifornia’s cameras can be viewed live 24/7.

Neal Driscoll

Director, AlertCalifornia; Geoscientist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego

Area of Expertise:

Climate change impacts on California and the increased frequency of natural hazards such as wildfires, atmospheric rivers, and landslides; ALERTCalifornia camera sensors for monitoring California in the face of increasing hazards due to the warming climate

Media Contact

Falko Kuester

Co-principal investigator, ALERTCalifornia; Professor of Structural Engineering and Computer Science & Engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering; Calit2 Professor for Visualization and Virtual Reality at the UC San Diego Qualcomm Institute

Area of Expertise:

Methodologies and techniques for rapid infrastructure diagnostics and assessment, including diagnostic and analytical imaging and big-data visualization, providing engineers, scientists, first responders and stakeholders, with a means to create and explore large-scale digital twins of engineered systems intuitively and interactively

Media Contact

Frank Vernon

Co-Prinicipal Investigator, ALERTCalifornia; Seismologist and Director of the High-Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN)

Area of Expertise:

Developing and maintaining internet-connected cyberinfrastructure in remote areas

Media Contact

WIFIRE

WIFIRE Lab develops science- and data-driven technologies with the fire management community. In collaboration with California’s Fire Integrated Real-Time Intelligence System (FIRIS), the WIFIRE Lab team provides environmental data integration expertise and the Firemap platform, supplying real-time all hazards data analysis and wildfire models to monitor and predict the direction and speed of fire spread, inform response and identify communities at risk. The Firemap models are available within minutes of every wildfire ignition and have revolutionized response efforts for the most dangerous fires across California.

The WIFIRE Lab also partners with federal and state agencies, the Los Alamos National Lab, utility companies and private foundations to provide the BurnPro3D platform for 3D fuel and fire modeling to inform prescribed burn planning, and WXmap for high-resolution weather data visualization. Our products are fueled by over a dozen research projects focused on quickly moving science to practice. WIFIRE Lab is based at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), part of the School of Computing, Information and Data Sciences (SCIDS) at UC San Diego.

Wildfire Science & Technology Commons

The Wildfire Science & Technology Commons was launched in October 2024 by the Proactive Wildfire & Environmental Sustainability Solutions (ProWESS) Center — a collaboration between UC San Diego and Los Alamos National Lab. The Wildfire Commons is being developed as a central hub for data, models, computing resources, and expertise to enable wildland fire researchers to collaborate with each other and practitioners to move quickly from theoretical ideas and experimental workflows to impactful, scalable real-world solutions. It will advance firetech by quickly moving research workflows into production through a community of practice, data standards and innovation pathways centered around open data, cutting-edge science and AI. The Commons team invites the wildland fire community to contribute to a comprehensive catalog of valuable data and models, share innovative solutions and connect with experts across many disciplines and domains. The Wildfire Commons is based at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), part of the School of Computing, Information and Data Sciences (SCIDS) at UC San Diego, and was funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology with support from Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Representatives Juan Vargas (CA-52) and Sara Jacobs (CA-51) through the Congressional appropriations process.

Ilkay Altintas

Chief Data Science Officer, San Diego Supercomputer Center; Founder-Director, WIFIRE Lab

Area of Expertise:

Wildfire management strategy using data, AI, and all-hazards knowledge cyberinfrastructure; forest management and controlled burns

Media Contact

Jessica Block

Associate Director, WIFIRE Lab

Area of Expertise:

Directs hazards research towards practical use in the field

Media Contact

Rod Linn

Adjunct Professor at UC San Diego; Senior Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory; Associate Director, Fire Science for WIFIRE

Area of Expertise:

Three-dimensional coupled fire/atmosphere modeling for wildfires and prescribed fires

Media Contact

Technology and Engineering

Patricia Hidalgo-Gonzalez

Assistant Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering

Area of Expertise:

Redesigning California's grid to be resilient during extreme weather events

Media Contact

Jan Kleissl

Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering

Area of Expertise:

Principal investigator of DERConnect, an NSF-funded testbed to help utilities include renewable energy sources into the power grid; simulating the grid, including under wildfire/fire conditions

Media Contact

Raymond A. de Callafon

Professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering

Area of Expertise:

Data conditioning and data assimilation to improve wildfire progress predictions based on real-time measurements and predictions of weather conditions, wind conditions and wildfire perimeter observations

Media Contact

Ingrid Tomac

Associate Professor, Structural Engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering

Area of Expertise:

Technologies to prevent mudslides after wildfires

Media Contact

Ryan Hanna

Assistant Research Scientist, UC San Diego Center for Energy Research

Area of Expertise:

Power outages caused by wildfires, prevention of power outages during wildfires, microgrids, grid resilience, energy policy

Media Contact

Michael Reher

Financial Economist at the Rady School of Management

Area of Expertise:

Real estate and the ability of mortgage, real estate and commodity markets to forecast weather and climate shocks

Media Contact