Donald Falk

Professor, Natural Resources

Member of the Graduate Faculty

Professor, Dendrochronology

Professor, Global Change - GIDP

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 Fellowship in 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.

Offering Research Opportunities?

Yes

Prerequisite Courses

None

Majors Considered

Outreach presentations to ASEMS (Arizona Science, Engineering, and Math Scholars Program), https://asems.arizona.edu/home regarding career opportunities in global change research

Types of Opportunities

Description of Opportunity

No description given

Start Date

August 2019

Primary Department

Affiliated Departments

Research Location