Research Assistant

Leona Shepherd

Leona Shepherd joined the POLIS team as a research assistant for the Wildfire Resilience Project in the spring of 2025. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Forestry from the University of Alberta, and has worked on wildfire crews in southern British Columbia and northern Alberta for the past 7 years. She is currently completing a Master’s thesis at Thompson Rivers University studying the relationship between climate change and wildfire in British Columbia. Her research interests lie in the intersection between fire weather, fire ecology, and governance. She is passionate about exploring integrated strategies to promote landscape resilience and support the adaptation of wildfire and forest management policies to climate change and other challenges.