Media tip sheet: Dozens of CSU experts available to discuss issues related to wildfires

As wildfires become more frequent and severe across the Western United States and beyond, Colorado State University researchers are leading the way in studying the impacts of these historic blazes and learning how to best protect our forests and communities. 

Numerous CSU researchers and Colorado State Forest Service specialists are available to share their expertise about multiple story angles related to wildfires, from the health impacts of smoke to forest management. 

See a list of experts below. To schedule interviews, please contact [email protected]. 

Colorado State Forest Service experts 

The Colorado State Forest Service, based out of CSU, provides technical forestry assistance, wildfire mitigation expertise and outreach and education to help landowners and communities achieve their forest management goals. 

Matt McCombs, Colorado State Forest Service director

McCombs is director of the Colorado State Forest Service, the agency responsible for the health and stewardship of Colorado’s forest lands. He is well versed in the various fire mitigation and recovery efforts the CSFS engages in around the state, along with all of the agency’s programs that support private land owners in managing forested acres. He oversees the production of Colorado’s annual Forest Health Report and can speak to forest health and management in the state.

Daniel Beveridge, Colorado State Forest Service fire, fuels and watershed manager

Beveridge oversees a variety of statewide programs that promote forest and watershed health and supports recognition of fire’s critical role in Colorado’s diverse ecosystems.

Ethan Bucholz, Colorado State Forest Service forest monitoring program manager

Bucholz runs the Colorado State Forest Service’s monitoring program, focusing on generating field data on forest treatments. His work helps the CSFS apply adaptive management to forest treatments and suggest subtle changes toward improving outcomes, which is critical in the face of an uncertain future with climate and disturbance-related stressors that threaten forests.

Christina Burri, Colorado State Forest Service deputy director

Prior to the CSFS, Burri worked as a watershed scientist and watershed planning manager for Denver Water. Burri created Denver Water’s first Watershed Planning Program and Team and led the utility’s forest health investments, such as the $96 million, nationally recognized From Forests to Faucets program.

Adam Moore, Colorado State Forest Service supervisory forester

Moore oversees the Alamosa field office. He manages projects to improve forest health, reduce wildfire risk to communities and assist communities with managing their urban forests.

Tim Reader, Colorado State Forest Service wood products program specialist

Reader has served in this role for more than 20 years, providing technical and business assistance to timber harvesting and wood products manufacturing businesses and wildfire mitigation contractors.

Carrie Tomlinson, Colorado State Forest Service urban and community forestry manager

Tomlinson leads statewide efforts to enhance urban tree canopy, build climate resilience and strengthen partnerships across Colorado communities. She supports initiatives that connect tree planting and green space expansion to long-term community wellbeing, particularly in rural and agricultural areas.

Weston Toll, Colorado State Forest Service watershed program specialist

Toll works closely with diverse partners to promote healthy watersheds by facilitating education, prioritization, implementation and monitoring of forest restoration projects. This includes the nationally recognized From Forests to Faucets program – a partnership among the CSFS, USDA Forest Service, NRCS, Colorado Forest Restoration Institute and Denver Water, which aims to mitigate the effects of uncharacteristic wildfire on more than 40,000 acres of critical forested watersheds.

Amanda West Fordham, Colorado State Forest Service associate director of science and data

West Fordham is an expert in strategic planning, ecology, geospatial analytics and climate change mitigation and adaptation. She has 20 years of experience in natural resource science, from field data collection to science-based policy, and she develops innovative methods to improve science delivery and outreach.

Wildfire science and natural resources 

Camille Stevens-Rumann, assistant professor in the Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship and interim director of the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute

Stevens-Rumann is a former wildland firefighter. She can discuss climate change, forest resilience, ecology and what fuels forest fires. Stevens-Rumann’s research focuses on ecosystem disturbances and the impact of events like wildfires.

Brett Wolk, assistant director at the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute 

Wolk develops and supplies usable science with and for forest and fire managers, policy-makers and the academic research community. His areas of expertise include translating science principles into practice, developing ecological monitoring programs, adaptive management processes, forest and fire policy, botany and assessing impacts of forest management on understory vegetation and wildland fuels. 

Forest management and wildfire policy 

Jude Bayham, associate professor of agricultural and resource economics 

Bayham can discuss the economics of wildfire management, including estimating the impact of threatened homes on how resources are allocated across the country, understanding the factors that influence communities’ willingness to adopt wildfire mitigation, and the health and social consequences of wildfire smoke. 

Christopher Robertson, director of the CSU Drone Center

Robertson works with researchers to analyze wildfires and flies drones to assess live fires and analyze burn scars for optical recovery and reforestation. 

Courtney Schulz, director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability and the CSU Climate Initiative, professor in the Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship and director of the Public Lands Policy Group

Schulz, who has testified before Congress on wildfire issues, can discuss prescribed fires, efforts to restore forests, how to protect homes to prepare for fires, federal policy and its impacts on forests, why forest fires are becoming more intense over time, how climate change is affecting forests, and post-fire recovery and and impacts such as flooding.

Smoke, air quality and the health impacts of wildfires 

Delphine Farmer, professor in the Department of Chemistry 

Farmer studies both indoor and outdoor pollution and recently authored a high-profile study regarding wildfire smoke and how it pollutes the air inside homes. 

Shantanu Jathar, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering 

Jathar studies air pollutant emissions from wildfires and structural fires at the wildland-urban interface, including the atmospheric evolution of these air pollutants and their impact on climate and human health. 

Tiffany Lipsey, director of the Heart Disease Prevention and First Responder Testing programs in the Human Performance Clinical Research Laboratory 

Lipsey has been working with Colorado firefighters and emergency personnel for over 20 years and has been involved in physiological testing for over 2,200 of these first responders. Some of her firefighting-related projects include cardiovascular disease risk assessment, lifestyle modification, carcinogen exposure, temperature regulation, cooling mechanisms, novel medical devices, noise exposure and performance. 

Sheryl Magzamen, epidemiology concentration lead of the Colorado School of Public Health

Magzamen can discuss the health impacts of wildfire smoke. She is an environmental health scientist who seeks to understand the role of inhalation hazards on respiratory health. 

Steven Miller, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere 

Miller’s expertise focuses on the detective analysis and modeling of active wildfires, as well as the transport of smoke through the atmosphere. 

Luke Montrose, assistant professor of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences

Montrose is an environmental toxicologist with research interests in public health, epigenetics, and chronic illness, particularly as it relates to vulnerable and understudied populations. A primary focus of the Montrose lab is studying the negative health impacts of wildfire smoke exposure among communities and workers (e.g., wildland firefighters). In 2020, Dr. Montrose launched the Rocky Mountain Wildfire Smoke Symposium which is an annual platform for disseminating information and involves participants from academia, government and industry.

Jeffrey Pierce, professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science 

Pierce can discuss the sources of air pollution and health effects from smoke, particulate matter and combustion byproducts. His research focuses on occupational and environmental exposures and risk assessments. 

John Volckens, professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Center for Energy Development and Health 

Volckens’ research interests involve air quality, low-cost sensors, exposure science and air pollution-related disease. He is a founding member of the CSU Partnership for Air Quality, Climate and Health – an organization that seeks to develop practical, science-vetted solutions to intertwined problems of air quality, climate and health that we face as a society. 

Climate and long-term fire outlook

Dan Cooley, professor in the Department of Statistics 

Cooley has developed a statistical model showing that extreme wildfires like the ones seen in 2020 are more likely in Northern Colorado than ever before. 

Alan Knapp, professor in the Department of Biology 

Knapp leads a team that is currently studying global change ecology – especially the manipulations of precipitation extremes, and large-scale comparisons of ecosystem sensitivity to climate, fire, grazing and nutrients. 

Dan McGrath, assistant professor in the Department of Geosciences 

McGrath’s recent research has shown declines in peak snow water equivalent and elevated snowmelt rates following the 2020 Cameron Peak fire. 

Russ Schumacher, Colorado State climatologist 

Schumacher leads the Colorado Climate Center, which is based in the Department of Atmospheric Science. He can share insights on the short- and long-term western weather conditions that cause or sustain wildfires, as well as the outlook for new ignitions going forward. 

Jason Sibold, professor in the Department of Anthropology and Geography 

Sibold studies the influence of weather, climate change, decades of fire suppression and bark beetles on wildfires. He can also discuss wildfires in the context of long-term patterns and the ecological role of natural wildfire events as identified from tree-ring records. 

Melinda Smith, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology 

Smith is researching how co-occurring droughts and deluges will impact carbon cycling across the vast grasslands of the continental U.S. 

Long and short-term impact of fires 

Erika Osborne, professor in the Department of Art and Art History 

Osborne’s artwork addresses the ways in which culture, history, ecology and aesthetics are enmeshed in western wildfire. 

Jordan Suter, professor of agricultural and resource economics 

Suter has researched the impact of wildfires on campground utilization, and his analyses have shown that fires can have negative impacts on reservations for up to six years after a fire occurs. He has also studied the dramatic consequences that wildfires can have on the provision of drinking waters to communities. His team is seeking to understand how drinking water quality and costs are influenced by wildfire events in upstream watersheds. 

Shawn Whitney, licensed marriage and family therapist and instructor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies 

Whitney can discuss the mental and emotional impacts of trauma, such as the loss of a home to a wildfire.

Jonathan Zhang, associate professor in the Department of Marketing 

Zhang can offer insight about what businesses should and should not do after tragedies within their communities, and the special considerations involved with selling services to those who have undergone trauma. He can also speak to how insurance companies calculate risk in wildfire zones, and the ethics of insurance companies and governments providing wildfire mitigation on private property. 

Additional resources:

The Colorado Wildfire Risk Viewer and Risk Reduction Planner are two apps in the Colorado Forest Atlas that provide wildfire risk assessment information and planning tools.