Scott Stephens
Henry Vaux Special Professor of Forest Policy
University of California, Berkeley, Environmental Science Policy and Management Department
Expertise: Fire ecology and management
Scott Stephens is the Henry Vaux special professor of forest policy at the University of California, Berkeley and a member of the PPIC Water Policy Center Research Network. He is interested in the interactions between ecosystems and prehistoric, current, and future wildland fire. He is also interested in how to improve wildland fire and forest policy to meet the challenges of the coming decades, including working with Indigenous partners to learn how to steward ecosystems into the future with climate change. Stephens has given testimony on fire and forest policy at the US House of Representatives, the White House, the California assembly and senate, and the California governor’s office. He served on the 2024 US Wildfire Commission, and he is on the board of directors of the Climate Wildfire Institute. He is one of the leaders of The Stewardship Project, which is a partnership of Indigenous people and western science to improve federal fire policy. He ranked in the top 1% of most-cited researchers worldwide in 2024 and 2025.
