Rebecca R. Hernandez is an associate professor in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources at the University of California, Davis; director of the Global Ecology and Sustainability Lab; and co-founder and co-director of the Wild Energy Initiative at the John Muir Institute of the Environment. Her research focuses on three related themes: 1) global environmental change, using drylands as model systems; 2) ecological aspects of energy development; and 3) sustainable outcomes of land use, human development and decision-making. Hernandez’s methodologies include traditional ecological field work, the use and development of environmental sensors, and systematic review, meta-analysis, surveys, geographic technologies, and other data-intensive methods used in socio-ecological science.
Rebecca Hernandez earned her Ph.D. in earth system science from Stanford University. Her research expertise is in understanding environmental and sustainability outcomes of energy systems. Her work has been featured 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, NPR, PBS, Scientific American and the Washington Post, among over one hundred other news outlets.
Research interests: energy, environment, ecology, solar energy, sustainability.