Associate Professor of Ecology and Earth System Science and Associate Earth System Scientist in the AES
Email: rrhernandez@ucdavis.edu
Office: 3142 Plant and Environmental Sciences Building
Phone: 530-752-5471
Fax: 530-752-1552 Personal Professional Website: http://GESlab.org
Wild Energy: http://wildenergy.org

Interests:
Dr. Rebecca R. Hernandez is an Associate Professor of Ecology and Earth System Science in the Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources, Director of the Global Ecology and Sustainability Lab (GESLab.org), and Director of the Wild Energy Center (WildEnergy.org) in the Energy and Efficiency Institute (University of California, Davis). Her research focuses on three related themes: 1) energy and the environment, 2) sustainability science, and 3) global environmental change in aridlands. Specifically, Dr. Hernandez leads research on ecological aspects of energy systems, identifying their impacts and development options to support a sustainable, just transition from fossil fuels to mitigate climate change. Her group is particularly interested in how land, air, water, biodiversity, and social outcomes relate to energy development and their interplay with global sustainability. With diverse stakeholders, her group leads solutions-oriented research where techno-ecological outcomes can be achieved simultaneously. Collectively, her groups’ methodologies are interdisciplinary but emphasize traditional ecological fieldwork, the use of environmental sensors, and computational and synthesis approaches used in sustainability science. Dr. Hernandez earned her Ph.D. in Earth System Science from Stanford University and received a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Professor Hernandez has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, including leading author articles in Nature Climate Change, Nature Sustainability, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Environmental Science & Technology, and Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. Her research has been featured on TV, radio, and print in Bloomberg Business, National Geographic, the New York Times, NPR, PBS, Popular Science, Scientific American, and the Washington Post, among over 150 other news outlets.