Melinda Adams 

Melinda Adams 

Melinda Adams is an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe and is from Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is a PhD candidate in the Native American Studies Department at UC Davis.

Her doctoral research focuses on the revitalization of cultural fire with California Indian Tribes at the intersection of ecology and environmental science, environmental policy, and Native American Studies methodology. She currently examines plant and soil bio-chemical responses to cultural fire including carbon storage, nutrient cycling, and water holding capacity. This work is rooted in the Traditional Ecological Knowledge and cultural stories of her Indigenous cultural fire practitioner-partners.

Melinda’s work has garnered several national fellowships including: The Johns Hopkins Health Policy Research Fellowship, the Mellon Dissertation Research Fellowship, and the Ford Foundation Doctoral Fellowship.

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Carlie Domingues

Carlie Domingues

Carlie Domingues studies for her PhD in Native American Studies at UC Davis. Previously, she earned her M.A. in American Indian Studies at UCLA where she focused on Indigenous’s women’s epistemology, Indigenous Storywork and praxis. At UCD, she researches mechanisms to undergird Indigenous relationship making, which includes community, social and cultural natural resource management and food systems. Broadly, her interests include Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Indigenous Environmental Studies, women’s storymaking, oral history and community self-determination Carlie is a three-sisters farmer and aims to improve her edible acorn preparation. She has recently become a mother and you will see her daughter, Sonora Victoria, participating and contributing to everything Carlie does.

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Nina Fontana

Nina Fontana

Nina Fontana is a member of the inaugural 2021-2022 “Future of Fire” cohort in the CASC Network Climate Adaptation Postdoctoral Fellows Program. She is working with the Southwest CASC at the University of California Davis. Using mixed methodologies, Nina’s Ph.D. research centered on traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in forest-dependent communities in the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine, specifically how TEK nurtures cultural ties to landscape, maintains health of communities, and informs adaptive capacity in supporting regional food sovereignty. Her broader research interests include socio-ecological resilience, translational ecology, Indigenous analysis of climate change, and environmental justice.

Nina received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Ecology from UC Davis. Her current research explores: 1) strategies to address multi-scalar policy barriers and opportunities to implement Indigenous-led traditional burning across land jurisdictions and ecosystems, and 2) the various scales in which Indigenous cultural burning may be applied to address climate change in Southwest ecosystems. With 15 years of teaching in both secondary and postsecondary settings, international and nationally, Nina is also committed to fostering creativity, inquiry, and critical thinking, both in and out of the classroom.

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Deniss Martinez

Deniss Martinez

Deniss Martinez is a PhD candidate in the Graduate Group in Ecology at UC Davis. The purpose of her dissertation is to find strategies for California Native communities and their collaborators to create governance and collaborative mechanisms that support Tribal self-determination and governance. Using qualitative methods and community-based research Deniss’ work centers the stories and narratives of cultural fire practitioners in California. Her vision is to work on creating a future that centers the wisdom of Indigenous people, not just as marginally relevant but as central to environmental decision making. She believes that just as people are an essential part of the environment; decolonization, reparations, and justice are essential to a just climate future. She aims to continue work that informs both settler governments and tribal governments on best strategies towards solving the climate crisis in a way that uplifts Tribal sovereignty, ensures justice for communities of color, and builds governance, culture and decision-making based on values of reciprocity, responsibility, and seven generation thinking.

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Martha Sample

Martha Sample

Research Associate
Center for Adaptable Western Landscapes, Northern Arizona University

Martha Sample is a research associate for the Center for Adaptable Western Landscapes. Martha’s many interests fall under the umbrella of conservation planning and management to address global change. Currently, her work focuses on exploring effective ecological monitoring, evaluating outcomes of ecological restoration, and developing climate adaptation strategies for land managers in the Southwest. Additionally, Martha is a student in NAU’s Ph.D. program in Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability. Her emphasis is Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology.

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Jessica Morse

Jessica Morse

Jessica Morse is the Deputy Secretary for Forest and Wildland Resilience at the California Natural Resources Agency. She is coordinating California’s approach to wildfire resilience including increasing the pace and scale of forest restoration and vegetation treatment. Jessica was the architect of the Governor’s $1.5 billion wildfire resilience strategy and developed the joint forest stewardship strategy between California the US Forest Service signed in 2020.

Prior to joining Governor Newsom’s administration, Jessica spent nearly ten years in National Security working for the Defense Department, State Department and the US Agency for International Development. Her assignments included a year and a half in Baghdad, Iraq, as well as tours in India, Myanmar, and US Pacific Command.

Throughout her career she designed and executed innovative strategies across agencies and governments, including a strategy using renewable energy technology transfer as a catalyst for US defense engagement with India.

Jessica is a 5th generation Northern Californian. She and her family still own their original homestead forestland in the Sierra foothills. Jessica is an outdoor enthusiast and can be found backpacking, skiing and fishing throughout the Sierra. She hiked 500 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail.

Ms. Morse holds a Masters of Public Affairs from Princeton University and a Bachelor Arts in economics from Principia College.

In 2018, Morse ran for U.S. Congress in California’s 4th Congressional District.

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Dr. Amber Soja

Dr. Amber Soja

Dr. Amber Soja is a Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace and is resident at NASA’s Langley Research Center, where she has served since 1997. She earned her PhD in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia, and she has over 25 years of research experience in using remotely-sensed data and models to explore the interactions between fire, the biosphere, and atmosphere, as weather and climate change. She has taken part in and led numerous interdisciplinary, national and international field campaigns that investigated feedbacks between fire and fuels, ecosystems, and weather and climate, primarily in remote Siberia. She holds one of the core papers comprising the research front in Boreal Forest Fires and Climate Change according to ScienceWatch.com. Amber also has an infinity towards making NASA ‘data and science’ into ‘usable’ information that is used by agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Forest Service (USFS), U.S. Geologic Survey (USGS), Universities, and non-profit international organizations. In her spare time, she absolutely adores being outside: hiking, gardening, walking, water activities, snow skiing,and her family, furry and all.

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Kelly Martin

Kelly Martin

IAWF board member since 2019,
President, Grassroots Wildland Firefighters
North American Burn Team, The Nature Conservancy
Former Chief of Fire and Aviation, Yosemite National Park

Kelly is the President of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing the public with information and education regarding much needed wildland fire workforce reforms. Her organization advocates on behalf of thousands of wildland firefighters.

She is also very active as a Burn Boss for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) mentoring and coaching other TNC employees and nonprofit organizations to help them become more skilled and proficient in applying “good fire” on the landscape.

After 35 years as a fulltime federal wildland firefighter, Kelly retired federal service in 2019 for an opportunity to pass her knowledge to the next generation through her volunteer work as a subcommittee chair of IAWF hosting “Ignite Talk” presentations and serving as the President of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters.

She is a Burn Boss; Fire Behavior Analyst; Operations Section Chief; and Operations Branch Director and served on Interagency Incident Management Teams for over 20 years. She has served as a Fire Management Officer for both the US Forest Service and the National Park Service in Moab, UT; Carson City, NV; Placerville, CA; and Yosemite, CA. She is a strong advocate and leader for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion promoting gender parity throughout the Wildland Fire Community. Her current work includes providing leadership for the Women-in-Fire Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (WTREX) and Indigenous Cultural burning Training Exchanges (TREX) events.

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Lindon Pronto

Lindon Pronto

Lindon is Senior Expert at the European Forest Institute primarily tasked with enhancing wildfire management capacity in Germany. He holds dual B.A. degrees in Environmental Analysis and German Studies from Pitzer College and a M.Sc. in Environmental Governance from Freiburg University, Germany. For 17+ years Lindon has engaged in wildfire suppression, research, management, training, capacity building, and policy support in 12+ countries in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Lindon started as a wildland firefighter (U.S. Forest Service 2007-2014) on the Tahoe and Eldorado National Forests on handcrews, engine, and helitack crews fighting fires across 8 states. In 2012 he received the Regional Forester’s Honor Award in Emergency Response and his unit received special recognition by President Obama.

Between 2015 and 2019 Lindon worked as a scientific aid/fire management officer at the Global Fire Monitoring Center, Max Planck Institute (Fire Ecology Working Group), based in Freiburg, Germany. There he was instrumental in preparing/executing the 6th International Wildland Fire Conference in Pyeongyang, South Korea (2015); helping to establish the Regional Fire Management Resource Center – Southeast Asia (2016-2018); helping coordinate activities of the Global Wildland Fire Network, International Wildfire Preparedness Mechanism and UNISDR Wildland Fire Advisory Group (2015-2019); and, chairing the Landscape Fire Crisis Mitigation Thematic Working Group of the FIRE-IN project, the first European Fire and Rescue Innovation Network (2017-present).

Lindon has also been contracted by agencies, NGOs, and international organisations: In Indonesia (ECO-Consult/German Corporation for International Cooperation); in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Lernen-Helfen-Leben; U.S. Forest Service International Programs/USAID) and in Europe (Pau Costa Foundation, Spain). Lindon offers thematic expertise to the European Commission, government agencies, the private sector, and regularly lectures at fire departments, trade fairs, conferences, schools and universities; as a subject matter expert, he has contributed to more than 50 print, radio, and TV publications/broadcasts internationally.

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Carol Baldwin, Ph.D.

Carol Baldwin, Ph.D.

Dr. Carol Baldwin is PI and Project Coordinator of the Great Plains Fire Science Exchange and Extension professional at Kansas State University.  She served on the Kansas Department of Health and Environment subcommittee that wrote the Flint Hills Smoke Management Plan, and led outreach efforts for Plan implementation in a region with high annual prescribed burning. She participated in the Wildland Fire Leadership Council’s Smoke Data Gaps Working Group meeting and the NWCG Smoke Managers Subcommittee.  She co-wrote the publication Prescribed Burning Communication Kit for presenting factual information to elected officials about prescribed burning risk and benefits.  Current research includes sampling grassland smoke from prescribed burning in situ using drones to provide PM2.5 and ozone data for improving smoke models.  Her work has been largely in the Great Plains region of the United States in an area characterized by open agricultural and rangeland landscapes and private land ownership.

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