Kayla Johnston, PhD

Kayla is an ecologist and geospatial scientist with a focus on fire ecology, fuels and fire behavior, and remote sensing. At SIG, she supports the development and improvement of spatial wildland fuel datasets for fire modeling and fuel treatment optimization efforts. She is proficient at creating and scaling workflows in Google Earth Engine, Python, and ArcGIS. Her current research focuses on the effectiveness, ecology, and management of fuel breaks and using remote sensing data to improve fire risk monitoring in the Great Basin. Her previous research focused on dendrochronology-based historical fire regime reconstructions and historical dynamics of dry forest disturbances. Kayla also has 7 seasons of fire and fuels management experience with the US Forest Service and remains active in prescribed fire implementation across the country.

Kayla holds a B.S. in Environmental Science and an M.S. in Sustainable Forest Management from Oregon State University. She is currently a PhD candidate in Rangeland Fire Ecology and an instructor of fire, fuels, and fire modeling courses at the University of Idaho.