Emily Fusco

My research combines fire ecology, invasion ecology, big data, and spatial analyses to understand how people impact wildfire regimes in the United States. For example, people ignite and suppress fires. We alter fuel sources through the introduction of invasive plants. We even impact climate, which has huge effects on when and where fire will burn. I am interested in understanding how all of these things interact to produce the wildfires we see today, as well as figuring out what wildfire will be doing in the future.

My work leverages big data to explore the interaction of wildfire with anthropogenic global change drivers at broad spatial scales while informing national and regional scale fire and invasive species management strategies. I am particularly interested communicating science between researchers, policy makers, and land managers to help reach conservation goals.