Hugh Safford

Sierra Nevada Region Lead

Chief Scientist | Vibrant Planet

Affiliate Faculty | University of California-Davis
hdsafford@ucdavis.edu

Hugh Safford is Chief Scientist at Vibrant Planet, an environmental public benefits corporation, and also holds a research position in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California-Davis. Previously, Safford managed the Forest Service’s Regional Ecology Program, a staff of ecologists that provide expertise in vegetation, fire, and restoration ecology, climate change, inventory, and monitoring to land management and planning efforts on the National Forests in the Pacific Southwest Region. He is also the manager of the Regional Research Natural Area program, the Sierra Nevada region leader for the California Fire Science Delivery Consortium, and a member of the science advisory boards for a number of environmental collaboratives and NGOs. Safford was an editor of Historical Environmental Variation in Conservation and Natural Resource Management, a recently published book exploring the challenges of applying historical reference conditions to the sustainable management of ecosystems in a rapidly changing world. Safford holds a Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of California, an M.A. in Secondary Education from San Francisco State University, and a B.S. in Geology from Montana State University. Safford grew up in southwestern Montana and now splits his time between Davis and Lake Tahoe, California.