Dr. Scott Stephens

Email: sstephens@berkeley.edu 

Hometown: Napa, CA 

Education:

Ph.D. Wildland Resource Science, UC Berkeley, 1995

M.S. Biomedical Engineering, California State University Sacramento, 1988 

B.S. Electrical Engineering, California State University Sacramento, 1985

Scott Stephens is interested in the interactions of wildland fire and ecosystems. This includes how prehistoric fires once interacted with ecosystems, how current wildland fires are affecting ecosystems, and how future fires and management will influence people and ecosystems. He is also interested in wildland fire and forest policy and how it can be improved to meet the challenges of the coming decades, both nationally and internationally. Working with Indigenous partners to learn how to steward ecosystems into the future with climate change is a key area of research.

Stephens has given testimony on fire and forest policy at the US House of Representatives, the White House, California Assembly and Senate, California Governor’s office, and severed on the 2024 US Wildfire Commission. He is on the Board of Directors of the Climate Wildfire Institute and is one of the leaders of The Stewardship Project which is a partnership of Indigenous people and western science to improve federal fire policy. He was selected in the  Top 1% of Researchers Worldwide in 2024 (https://clarivate.com/highly-cited-researchers/).