Brianna (Bri) Baker

Bio
Brianna Baker is an advocate for the importance of fire in California’s ecological systems. Growing up in Ventura County, she has seen firsthand the impacts of wildfire on human communities and understands that climate change and land management strategies change the dynamic of fire regimes. An alumna of Occidental College, Brianna graduated magna cum laude in 2018 with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. While at Occidental, she received the Roberts Research Fellowship in Environmental Sciences to conduct independent research on urban plant ecology during which she realized the resilience of vegetation communities. Because of her interest in encouraging intersectionality in STEM, she started volunteering with Boundless Brilliance, a science diversity nonprofit focused on kids where she continues as the website manager. Following graduation, she initiated her career in land management by working in Vegetation Management for the National Park Service. She spent three months living in a tent in the Sequoia National Park backcountry and most recently worked at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area where she helped set up the seed collection and banking program in their native plant restoration nursery and assisted post-Woolsey Fire restoration. Brianna specializes in Conservation Planning at the Bren School where she intends to meld human empathy with scientific understanding to inform public land management. Her long-term goal is to mediate the interaction between human communities and wildland fire.