Teaching

 Courses taught

NRES 495/695 Fire Ecology and Management

Forest affected by bark beetles and wildfire in the Big Wood River Basin near Ketchum, ID (photo by Erin Hanan)

Fall 2019 – present | University of Nevada, Reno

Fire is a fundamental ecological process affecting individual organisms, populations, communities, ecosystems, and watersheds worldwide. Fire regimes (the combination of fire patterning, frequency, and intensity) vary over space and time depending on vegetation (fuels), weather, climate, topography, and humans. This course focuses fire regime as an overarching theme, with particular emphasis on:

  1. The drivers of fire regime and how they vary over space and time
  2. How fire regime influences ecological processes
  3. How it is modified by climate change and human activities
  4. How we are attempting to mitigate these changes through management

We discuss current issues in fire ecology and fire management, with both a regional focus on the western United States (especially California and Nevada), and from an international perspective. This is a survey course of an inherently interdisciplinary topic, which will provide a firm foundation of knowledge for students whose interest in fire ecology stem from a variety of motivations.

 

NRES 465/665 Earth Systems and Global Change

Edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet (photo by Erin Hanan)

Spring 2020 – present | University of Nevada, Reno

Global environmental change is among the biggest challenges facing humanity today. Earth system science is an emerging field for studying global change that integrates the human realm with the biophysical world we inhabit. In this course we focus on the Earth as a single, dynamic system. We examine the major components of the Earth system and how they are maintained in equilibrium by feedbacks and interactions among its component “spheres,” including the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere. Using this framework, we investigate ways in which Earth is changing in response to human activities.

 

Past courses

  • NRES 701d Ecohydrology Modeling Workshop | 2019-2021 | University of Nevada, Reno
  • EVR 3013 Ecology of South Florida | 2008 | Florida International University
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