Search: Faculty directory, Environmental Disasters

Scott Stephens is interested in the interactions of wildland fire and ecosystems. This includes how prehistoric fires once interacted with ecosystems, how current wildland fires are affecting ecosystems, and how future fires and management may change this interaction. He is also interested in wildland fire policy and how it can be improved to meet the challenges of the next decades. How fire will be affected by climate change is a new area of research.

Mantle convection and large-scale mantle structure; rotational dynamics and gravity fields of terrestrial planets; history and dynamics of global plate motions; igneous processes in the mantle and deep crust; regional crustal deformation and earthquake hazards.

Ethical issues in emerging technologies, risk assessment and risk management for technological and natural complex systems, nuclear reactor safety, environmental risk analysis, environmental conflict resolution.

Frank C Beall's research examines performance of wood and wood-based materials in structures. Current focus is on improving durability of structures, including an exploration of how they are affected by decay, fire, and earthquakes. His projects include developing recommendations for reducing fire damage of structures in the urban-wildland interface and evaluating seismic performance of wood shear walls, which are critical to earthquake effects on wood-frame buildings.