Principal, Spatial Informatics Group; Cooperative Extension Specialist in Fire, University of California; Adjunct Professor, Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, UC Santa Barbara

Max serves as an advisor on several aspects of the Pyregence Project, making contributions especially to the Climate Change & Fire Projections Team. His areas of interest include broad-scale patterns of wildfire, what controls them, and their effects on humans and ecosystems—also known as pyrogeography. He has research expertise in wildfire, biogeography, climate change adaptation, and spatial analysis. Max specializes in communicating scientific findings in the public realm and joining forces with stakeholders to develop solutions to fire-related problems. In 2005 he co-founded the Center for Fire Research and Outreach at UC Berkeley, which has become a focal point for disseminating fire-related information. He has published dozens of research articles in peer-reviewed journals, gives many presentations each year, and participates in academic and governmental decision-making committees, including the steering committee for the California Fire Plan. Understanding fire regimes as a complex phenomenon driven by a variety of biological and physical factors, Max seeks to quantify the relative importance of these factors. He also studies global fire patterns and how they will shift under climate change. Max holds a doctorate in Biogeography from UC Santa Barbara.