Heather Dawn Alexander

I am an assistant professor of forest and fire ecology in the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences at Auburn University. My research focuses on understanding forest ecosystem vulnerability in the face of changing fire disturbance regimes using observations across natural gradients and field-based experimental manipulations. I have been studying the implications of fire suppression and ‘mesophication’ on oak and mixed forests of the eastern U.S. for over 15 years and I am especially interested in understanding how forest compositional and structural shifts impact forest flammability under a variety of conditions. I also study wildfire implications for carbon dynamics in boreal forests underlain by permafrost.