Rate My Professor Kate Wilkin

Dr. Kate Wilkin is an Assistant Professor of Fire Ecology in the Department of Biological Sciences at San Jose State University, where she is a core member of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center and helps develop an undergraduate wildfire minor. She earned a Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from the University of California, Berkeley in 2016, focusing her thesis on California forest and shrubland ecosystem changes in relation to fire, fuel hazard, and climate change; an M.S. in Biology from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in 2009; and a B.S. with double majors in Biology and Environmental Science from the College of William and Mary in 2004. With nearly 20 years in natural resource management, wildland fire, research, and outreach, previous positions include Adviser at University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (2017–2020), surveying over 300 private landowners on prescribed fire desires and challenges while co-hosting workshops; Postdoctoral Researcher at UC Berkeley (2017); Senior Fire Ecologist at Vollmar Natural Lands Consulting (2017–2019); Lead Botanist, Data Manager, and Analyst at Yosemite National Park (2008, 2010–2011); and Graduate Student Researcher at UC Berkeley (2011–2016) and Cal Poly (2007–2009).

Her research interests center on prescribed fire, fire adaptations of plants and plant communities, and wildfire recovery across fire-prone California ecosystems from wilderness to wildland-urban interface, including chaparral and mixed-conifer forests. Key publications encompass "Pyrodiversity begets plant–pollinator community diversity" (Global Change Biology, 2016), "Vegetation change during 40 years of repeated managed wildfires in the Sierra Nevada, California" (Forest Ecology and Management, 2017), "A roadmap for pyrodiversity science" (Journal of Biogeography, 2024), "Drivers of understory plant communities in Sierra Nevada mixed conifer forests with pyrodiversity" (Fire Ecology, 2021), and "Long-term influence of prescribed burning on subsequent wildfire in an old-growth coast redwood forest" (Fire Ecology, 2025). Dr. Wilkin has received grants including a $100,000 EPA Environmental Education grant (PI, 2019) and awards such as the Berkeley College of Natural Resources Graduate Student in Extension Fellowship ($40,000, 2015) and National Park Service George Melendez Wright Climate Change Fellowship ($20,000, 2012). She led adaptation of the USFS FireWorks curriculum for California fire literacy, co-hosted workshops on prescribed fire and recovery, addressed over 60 public meetings, and appeared in Science Magazine, NPR’s Science Friday, Outside Magazine, and Sunset Magazine.