Clarke Knight, PhD, is a Research Scientist within the Forest and Agriculture domain, bringing expertise in forest ecology, wildfire, and hydroclimate. Clarke is interested in reconstructing past forest conditions in California’s forestlands to quantify conditions considered ecologically resilient.

Recently, she led a project analyzing forest activities across California using remote sensing and historical forest activity records. This research on tracking California’s forest treatments was acknowledged by the co-chairs of the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force – the Forest Supervisor for Region 5 of the USFS and the Secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency – with a new Interagency Treatment Tracker based on her work. At SIG, Clarke contributes to projects concerning outcome-based change metrics and the reconstruction of historic forest conditions from public land surveys.

Clarke holds a PhD in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from UC Berkeley, as well as an MSc in Water Science, an MSc in Biodiversity Conservation, and a BA in Chemistry. Before joining SIG, Clarke was a Research Scientist at the US Geological Survey.