Alexandra D. Syphard, PhD

Governor appointee

Senior Research Ecologist at the Conservation Biology Institute;  Adjunct Professor,  San Diego State 

Expertise:

  • Geospatial, statistical and risk modeling approaches
  • Fire ecology, climate and land use change, invasive species
  • Vegetation management’s impact on wildfire patterns
  • Data governance

Alexandra D. Syphard, Ph.D. is a research scientist who has spent more than two decades analyzing the drivers and impacts of landscape change, particularly focusing on wildfire in California and other Mediterranean ecosystems. She investigates how change has occurred in the past, how it is likely to occur in the future, and how different policy or management alternatives may impact human and ecological well-being. Alexandra has concentrated intensely on wildfire risk to communities and identifying the best approaches for balancing fire risk reduction with biodiversity conservation. She also developed a wildfire risk model to inform the cat pricing for a wildfire-focused homeowners insurance company. She further designed the company’s homeowner inspections program for wildfire safety. Her current research focuses on the interactions among wildfire patterns, fire-climate relationships, land use change and urban growth, vegetation dynamics, invasive species, and species’ range shifts.

Contact: alexandra.syphard@energysafety.ca.gov