I’m a science and health writer, editor, and video producer working in digital media for the UC Davis Environmetal Health Sciences Center.  My most recent big project is the Emmy-nominated documentary "Waking Up to Wildfires," which focuses on the ways wildfires are affecting the health of communities in Northern California.

I came up with the idea for the project after reading several scientific papers predicting wildfires in Northern California would grow more severe and devastating with climate change. The National Institutes of Health funded the project, and I hired a San Francisco-based filmmaker to help produce the documentary. We travelled almost 2,000 miles together over six months, interviewing survivors, firefighters, scientists, mental health experts, and housing advocates to find out how people were recovering from the 2017 North Bay wildfires. Just weeks after our film wrapped, the Camp Fire erupted. 

The film screened to a sold-out audience of survivors and community members in Sonoma, CA in 2018, Cal Fire used it in a suicide prevention program, and the National Academies of Sciences featured it in their proceedings. The documentary is in syndication on PBS through 2021.