Niki vonHedemann, Ph.D.

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
• Bridging social and biophysical environmental methods
• Natural resource policy analysis
• Political ecology and critical physical geography

Niki’s current work focuses on examining the connections between federally recognized tribes and forest restoration efforts on federal lands, monitoring collaboration outcomes in federal land management, analyzing post-fire reforestation policies, and understanding public perceptions and experiences with forest management, wildfire, and post-fire flooding. 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. 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. 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