USDA Forest Service Liaison

Hugh Safford is Regional Ecologist for the US Forest Services (USFS) Pacific Southwest Region and a member of the research faculty in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California - Davis. Safford manages a staff of ecologists that provide expertise in vegetation and fire ecology, inventory, monitoring, and general applied science to resource management on the National Forests in California. Safford is the director of the Sierra Nevada region of the California Fire Science Conso rtium and manager of the USFS Research Natural Area program in California. Safford also provides technical assistance to the International Program of the USFS and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). He earned a B.S. in Geology at Montana State University, an M.A. in Secondary Education at San Francisco State University, and a Ph.D. in Ecology at University of California - Davis.