Tag: social science
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Job opening: Postdoctoral Researcher in Wildfire Social Science
The FiRES project is seeking a highly motivated Postdoctoral Researcher in Wildfire Social Science to join the team at ETH Zürich. The position is fixed-term for one year, with the possibility of a one-year extension. Highly qualified candidates with care responsibilities may be able to negotiate a part-time position. Deadline for applications: 29 January 2026.…
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Masters project completed, adding a case study of the 2023 Riederhorn wildfire to the FiRES portfolio
(Photos are from the photo-book “Brand am Riederhorn” (2023), reproduced with the kind permission of the Bitsch and Riederhorn Municipalities.) For the past year, Lena Widmer has focused her Masters project on the 2023 Riederhorn wildfire in Canton Valais, Switzerland. Commonly referred to in the press as the Bitsch wildfire, the Riederhorn more accurately refers…
Christine Eriksen
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It’s full steam ahead with a new institutional home for the FiRES project!
As of October 1, 2025, the FiRES project has a new institutional home at ETH Zürich. I am excited to be back in the Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, which is hosting the FiRES project after its initial two years at the University of Bern. FiRES’ fieldwork and collaborations continue unabated. The team…
Christine Eriksen
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Project stock-take: a busy six months!
It’s that time of year when I’m asked by the Institute of Geography at the University of Bern to contribute to the Annual Report. It made me realise that a project stock-take is well and truly overdue, as the Geographies of Disasters team has been very busy the last six months. An absolute highlight has…
Christine Eriksen
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Risk, inclusion and belonging in mountain professions
The Geographies of Disasters Group hosted Rachel Reimer who was visiting the University of Bern to share their research on risk, inclusion and belonging in mountain professions with the Berner Humangeographisches Kolloquium on 17 September 2024. Rachel began leading a wildfire crew in 2012, and took a step off the fireline and into research and…
Christine Eriksen
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Nurturing networks, sharing insights
It has been a busy few weeks nurturing connections and building collaborations through three key events and a wonderful network of wildfire researchers and practitioners in Europe. In May, I was invited by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN/BAFU) to contribute to their first ever “Waldbrand Tagung” (wildfire workshop) on 22 May in…
Christine Eriksen
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News feature!
As weeks or months of chronic smoke conditions caused by wildfires impede “business as usual”, the quest to secure clean air has – in and of itself – become a business. Late last year, science journalist Shayla Love interviewed me for an article in The New Republic about The Hot New Luxury Good for the…
Christine Eriksen
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Nurturing collaborations!
Since 2014, Gregory Simon and I have nurtured an on-going research collaboration that has enabled us to think and write together about the diverse ways affluence and vulnerability intersect in the context of disasters. Many have inspired and worked with us along the way, and to continue to grow this collaborative endeavour, the Geographies of…
Christine Eriksen
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Watch the closing plenary session of the AFE Fire Congress 2023 online!
Did you miss the awesome closing plenary session at the AFE Fire Congress 2023? Fret not! The Association for Fire Ecology has made the recording available online. I talk from 9-39 mins, followed by Chief Royal Ramey from the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program, and Ryan Reed and Kyle Trefny from the FireGeneration Collaborative. Please…
Christine Eriksen
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From natural hazards to cyber resilience: moving beyond traditional risk analysis
Affluence and vulnerability are often seen as opposite sides of a coin – with affluence generally understood as reducing forms of vulnerability through increased resilience and adaptive capacity. However, during the past ten years, my research with a range of colleagues has consistently highlighted the need to re-examine this dynamic relationship in the context of…
Christine Eriksen
Dr. Christine Eriksen 