Sarah McCaffrey, Ph.D., Research Social Scientist, USDA Forest Service, sarah.m.mccaffrey@usda.gov

Sarah McCaffrey, Ph.D. is a Research Social Scientist for the USDA Forest Service. Her research focuses on the social aspects of fire management. This work has included projects examining wildfire risk perception, social acceptability of prescribed fire and thinning, incentives for creation and maintenance of defensible space, and social issues that occur during and after fires such as evacuation decision making and agency-community interactions. More recent work is examining barriers and opportunities to increased use of fire as a management tool and finding ways to reframe the fire problem that better allow for more holistic consideration of both social and ecological concerns. She received her BA from Stanford University and her PhD in Wildland Resource Science from the University of California at Berkeley.