Graduate Student

Research Interests: Ecocultural landscapes; landscape history; fire ecology; dendrochronology; wildfire governance; forest management

Kelsey Copes-Gerbitz is UBC Public Scholar and an ecologist by training who has recently learned the crucial contribution of social sciences to addressing complex environmental challenges. Kelsey's research engages with questions of historical landscapes, drivers of environmental and cultural change, shifting fire regimes, and forest resilience and management. She has a strong affinity for collaborative research that crosses disciplinary boundaries and for using history to guide future management of fire-dependent forested and grassland ecosystems. As a co-supervisee of Dr. Shannon Hagerman and Dr. Lori Daniels (UBC Tree-Ring Lab), Kelsey is currently working with the T’exelc and the Williams Lake Community Forest in the dry forests of the interior of British Columbia to better understand the role of fire through time in an ecocultural landscape in the T’exelc traditional territory. Through this emergent research design, the collaborators are aiming to co-develop ethical and proactive wildfire management practices that are respectful of both the ecological and cultural history of the landscape. Kelsey is also working with provincial and regional wildfire experts to identify the governance context driving wildfire management in BC, and seeks to understand how this governance context has shaped ecocultural landscapes through time.

In addition to her PhD work, Kelsey is also a Research Assistant on a project exploring community-based solutions to wildfire management in the multi-value wildland-urban interface in BC and a Teaching Assistant

Kelsey holds a BA from Willamette University in Oregon and an MSc in Environmental Monitoring, Modeling and Reconstruction from The University of Manchester in Manchester, England. In addition to her international experience, Kelsey brings a practical perspective to her research with two years of non-profit conservation and restoration work in Oregon and two years of ecological consulting experience in England.

Learn more about Kelsey's research here: