MSc Student, Geosciences and Human-Environment Systems
Fiona is currently a MSc student in Geosciences and the Human-Environment Systems group at Boise State University. Her research focuses on how shifting disturbance regimes—particularly fire regimes—influence plant species distributions in arid landscapes. In particular, Fiona is interested in how predicting landscape-scale ecological shifts might inform management decisions and social-ecological responses to changing environmental and climatic conditions. She is also the statewide coordinator for climate change planning and action with the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts. Fiona completed her BS in Earth Systems at Stanford University, with a joint focus on environmental education, land rights, and climate policy. She worked as a research assistant in the Social Ecology Lab from 2015-2018, where her projects included studying how immersive NatureBridge programming in Yosemite influences pro-environmental behaviors, formal literature reviews on early childhood EE and land trust-university partnerships, and field work with the Summen Project. Prior to starting her graduate work at BSU, Fiona also worked as a fellow at the Landesa Center for Women's Land Rights, as a classroom teacher and backcountry expedition leader at the High Mountain Institute in Leadville, Colorado, and as a conservation associate at the Deschutes Land Trust in Bend, Oregon.