Join us for a discussion about urban wildfires in the context of a changing climate.
The recent wildfires in the greater Los Angeles area call attention to the risks to people and property in urban areas. We are hosting a Climate Conversation to highlight the lessons learned and opportunities for science to support impacted communities, drawing on experience from other major urban fires in the last few years. The event will unpack the range of factors that are contributing to urban wildfire risk, and explore the impacts on health, infrastructure, and other human systems, as well as discuss how communities can prepare and move forward in the aftermath of a disaster.
Climate Conversations: Pathways to Action is a monthly webinar series from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that aims to convene high-level, cross-cutting, nonpartisan conversations about issues relevant to policy action on climate change.
Participiant Bios
Michael Méndez is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy and Planning at UC Irvine, an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and Visiting Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). He has over a decade of senior-level experience in public and private sectors, including work with the California State Legislature, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, and the Sacramento City Planning Commission. His research examines the politics of environmental justice and climate change, as highlighted in his award-winning book, “Climate Change from the Streets”.
Christine Wiedinmyer is the Associate Director for Science at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and a Research Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. A former scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Dr. Wiedinmyer holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Tulane University and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Wiedinmyer’s research focuses on the identification and quantification of various emission sources, including wildfires and fires in the wildland-urban interface, and modeling the transport and fate of emitted pollutants in the atmosphere.
Joshua Weil is an Emergency Physician from Santa Rosa, CA with almost 30 years of experience in the field. He has done disaster relief work nationally and internationally, and in 2017 lived a disaster directly when the Tubbs Fire in Northern California destroyed his home while he was responsible for directing the evacuation of Kaiser Hospital Santa Rosa.