Dr. Jen Pierce has a Ph.D. from the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico, an M.A. in Geography from the University of Oregon, and a B.A. in Geology with an emphasis in Environmental Geology from The Colorado College in Colorado Springs. For the year after college graduation, she was a Thomas J. Watson fellow and used that opportunity to study the effects of mining in Indonesia, China and Australia. Dr. Pierce joined the faculty of the Department of Geosciences at Boise State University in 2005. Her research interests include Quaternary geomorphology, Holocene fire history and climate change, recent fire history and climate change, and feedbacks among hydrologic, biologic and geologic systems. Much of her field work is in the rugged and scenic mountains of Idaho, including the City of Rocks, the Sawtooth Mountains, Middle Fork of the Salmon River, South Fork of the Payette River, and the Boise River, with funding sources that include NSF, BLM, City of Rocks, and NSF-EPSCoR.