Member of the Graduate Faculty | Professor, Natural Resources | Professor, Global Change - GIDP | Professor, Dendrochronology
Don Falk is Professor in the University of Arizona School of Natural Resources and the Environment, with joint appointments in the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research and the Institute of the Environment. He holds degrees from Oberlin College, Tufts University, and the University of Arizona, where he received his PhD in 2004. Don’s research focuses on fire history, fire ecology, and ecological restoration and resilience in a changing world. Falk has been a AAAS Fellow since 1991, and has received the Fulbright Short-Term Scholar award, the Ecological Society of America’s Deevey Award for outstanding graduate work in paleoecology, the William McGinnies Fellowship, Pinchot Institute Conservation Scholarship, and a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant. In 2008 he and collaborators C. Miller, D. McKenzie, A. Black) were chosen for “Outstanding Paper in Landscape Ecology” by the International Association for Landscape Ecology – US. In 2012 he was selected by his peers in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment for Outstanding Scholarly Achievement, and in 2013 his course “Introduction to Wildland Fire” was chosen by the students of the School as Outstanding Course. In 2014-15 he was awarded the Udall Faculty Fellowshiin Public Policy for studies in post-fire ecological resilience. In 2015 Don served as a University of Arizona Delegate to the Paris global climate summit. Don Falk was co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Plant Conservation at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, now at San Diego Zoo Global. He served subsequently as the first Executive Director of the Society for Ecological Restoration International SER) of which he was a founding Board member. Falk is the author of more than more than 140 publications and has co-edited five books, including Genetics and Conservation of Rare Plants 1991, Oxford University Press, with Kent Holsinger, Restoring Diversity: Strategies for Reintroduction of Endangered Plants 1996, Island Press, with Connie Millar and Peggy Olwell) Foundations of Restoration Ecology 2006, Island Press, with Margaret Palmer and Joy Zedler; Second Edition 2016) and The Landscape Ecology of Fire 2011, Springer, with Don McKenzie and Carol Miller) He is a member of the Editorial Board for the SER-Island Press series, Science and Practice of Restoration Ecology, the Executive Board of the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, and is science lead for the FireScape initiative in the Arizona Sky Islands. He serves as Chair of the Global Change Ecology and Management degree option in the UA School of Natural Resources and the Environment and the University Minor in Climate Change and Society.
Renowned University of Arizona professor Don Falk has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to address the challenges of wildfires and climate change in the Southwest U.S. The project, 'Planning: FIRE-PLAN', focuses on creating a Fire-Climate Response Early Warning (F-CREW) network to identify vulnerable ecosystems and engage with affected communities.
Key aspects of the grant:
* Developing a framework to identify areas most susceptible to fire-mediated changes
* Collaborating with communities through workshops and site visits to create management protocols
* Clarifying the role of wildfire in determining structural change in Southwestern ecosystems
* Addressing fundamental questions about vulnerability to rapid ecological change and the impact of wildfire.