Niki vonHedemann

Human Dimensions Specialist

Niki is the ERI Human Dimensions Specialist and a social scientist with research experience in both the U.S. and Latin America. Her work focuses on understanding the human dimensions of ecosystem management and natural resource policies with an emphasis on communicating across the social and ecological sciences and collaborating with affected partners. Her interests lie at the cross section of social science, ecology, and forest restoration, focusing on the complex social, political, and economic factors that play into landscape management and conservation governance.

Research interests:

• Human dimensions of forest restoration
• Tribal and Indigenous engagement with public lands and forest stewardship
• Collaborative governance
• Wildfire social science
• Climate adaptation and mitigation in land management
• Bridging social and biophysical environmental methods
• Natural resource policy analysis
• Political ecology and critical physical geography

Niki obtained her PhD in geography at the University of Arizona, where her interdisciplinary dissertation research focused on the social and ecological impacts of national forestry incentive programs in the Western Highlands of Guatemala to determine if development-linked conservation payments provided benefits to rural Indigenous landholders and enhanced forest carbon sequestration and storage. She has also examined the role of gender in scientific research and power dynamics in the production of scientific knowledge. She previously worked as a research associate in the Public Lands Policy Group in the Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship at Colorado State University, exploring the relative influence of forest management and climate change on U.S. forests and supporting an interdisciplinary Climate Adaptation Partnership research and policy endeavor. After obtaining a B.S. in ecology, she worked as a biological field technician in New Mexico and California for the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey.

Education

B.S. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rice University

M.A. Geography, University of Arizona

Ph.D. Geography, University of Arizona

Relevant Publications

See Niki’s publications on Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pvhWJzYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao