UC San Diego Wildfire Experts Directory
As California faces wildfire season following drought in much of the state, experts at UC San Diego are available to discuss wildfires, drought, and California climate across an array of topics, including climate science, technology, public health, and economics and policy.
UC San Diego is home to two major programs that aid fire officials in mitigating wildfires. ALERTWildfire is a rapidly-expanding network of high-tech infrared cameras located throughout the West that fire agencies use to confirm locations of wildfires in their critical first moments, collect intel as fires evolve, and sequence evacuations. The WIFIRE Lab at the San Diego Supercomputer Center applies the power of data science and supercomputing to provide fire officials with real-time fire models to help strategize the best approach to containment.
More information on UC San Diego experts is below. Please reach out to the listed media contacts to arrange individual interviews, or Matthew Nagel (mnagel@ucsd.edu) for more background on programs and experts.
Wildfire Programs
Ilkay Altintas
Chief Data Science Officer, Founder-Director of the WIFIRE Lab at the San Diego Supercomputer Center
Biography | Contact
Jessica Block
Associate Director of WIFIRE Lab
Directs hazards research towards practical use in the field
Biography | Contact
Neal Driscoll
Co-Director of ALERTWildfire, Geoscientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Biography | Twitter | Contact
Falko Kuester
ALERTWildfire team member, 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
Biography | Contact
Frank Vernon
Seismologist and Director of the High-Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN)
Developing and maintaining internet-connected cyberinfrastructure in remote areas
Biography | Contact
California Climate and Climate Change
Daniel Cayan
Research meteorologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
California climate, climate change connections to wildfire, drought
Biography | Contact
Rachel Clemesha
Project scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Marine layer clouds and California coastal climate, interplay of marine layer clouds and heat waves
Biography | Contact
Sasha Gershunov
Research meteorologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
California climate, precipitation and drought, heat waves, marine layer clouds, atmospheric rivers, Santa Ana winds, extreme weather and climate impacts on wildfire
Biography | Contact
Kristen Guirguis
Project scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Regional and global climate variability and change, including improving predictions of precipitation extremes in California, off-season heat waves and their impact on snowpack and water resources, and heat related health impacts on populations in California.
Biography | Contact
Julie Kalansky
Climate scientist and operations manager for the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes and California-Nevada Applications Program at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
California climate, climate change connections to wildfire, drought, atmospheric rivers
Biography | Twitter | Contact
Nina Oakley
Program manager for the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
California climate and connection to wildfires, post-wildfire debris flows
Biography | Twitter | Contact
David Pierce
Climate scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
El Nino and La Nina forecasting and impacts, attribution of human-caused climate change in Western U.S. snowpack and streamflow, natural climate variability
Biography | Contact
Marty Ralph
Research meteorologist and Director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at Scripps
Western weather, atmospheric rivers, California water supply and reservoir management, Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations
Biography | Contact
Economics and Policy
Judson Boomhower
Environmental economist, Department of Economics
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; and preventive power shutoffs.
Website | Contact
Richard Carson
Environmental economist, Department of Economics
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.
Website | Contact
Tom Corringham
Climate economist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Understanding the economic impacts of climate change and extreme weather events including wildfires, catastrophic floods, atmospheric rivers, El Niño, and more.
Biography | Twitter | Contact
David Victor
Political scientist at the School of Global Policy and Strategy
Impacts wildfire and other extreme events linked to climate change have on public policy, international climate negotiations and financial markets.
Biography | Contact
Public Health
Rosana Aguilera Becker
Postdoctoral scholar at Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Impacts of wildfire and fine-particle pollution on public health
Biography | Contact
Tarik Benmarhnia
Climate change epidemiologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science
Wildfire and climate impacts on public health; environmental justice
Biography | Twitter | Contact
Technology
Nikolay Atanasov
Control of fleets of drones for monitoring wildfire conditions
Electrical Engineering Professor at UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering
Biography | Contact
Ingrid Tomac
Structural Engineering Professor
Technologies to prevent mudslides after wildfires
Biography | Contact
Health Care
Jeanne Lee, MD
Director, UC San Diego Health Regional Burn Center
Biography | Contact
Ted Chan, MD
Chair of emergency medicine, UC San Diego Health
Biography | Contact
Jess Mandel, MD
Chief, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, UC San Diego Health
Biography | Contact
Sydney Leibel, MD, MPH
Assistant professor and pediatric immunologist
Biography | Contact
Images courtesy of ALERTWildfire; Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego; Erik Jepsen,/University Communications; Brandon Rowe; and WIFIRE Lab, UC San Diego.