Hannah Brenkert-Smith is an environmental sociologist whose work examines social/environmental interactions in the face of environmental change, particularly in the American West. In the past fifteen years, Brenkert-Smith's work has focused primarily on household and community response to wildfire risk. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, this work has focused on risk mitigation decision-making and forest and wildfire hazard planning related to informal and formal social interactions. Her current projects include efforts exploring emergent understandings of fire adaptation across stakeholders engaged in wildfire risk reduction activities; understanding conflicting understandings of pathways to forest resilience; and identifying social determinants shaping acceptability of fuel treatments on public lands.
keywords
Hazards and Disaster, Wildfire, Wildland-Urban Interface, Risk narratives, Risk perception
