Emily Wilkins


Emily Wilkins
Program: PhD in Environment and Society
Mentor: Dr. Jordan Smith

Emily Wilkins is a PhD student in the department of Environment and Society with a focus on Climate Adaptation Science. She received her undergraduate degree from Drake University in Environmental Science and Environmental Policy, her Masters from the University of Maine in Forest Resources with a concentration in human dimensions of forest resources, and found a research interest match with Dr. Jordan Smith, who is her current PhD mentor. During her MS, she studied public lands and loves being in the west where there are many public lands to research. In her free time, Emily enjoys hiking, trail running, camping, backpacking, gardening, and baking.

Her research focuses on how weather impacts how people use and explore public lands. Through the use of social media and weather data, she is studying how human behavior changes in response to the weather. She hopes that this research will help understand how climate change will affect human behavior, which in turn affects the use of public lands.

She offers the following advice: “Talk to current graduate students and find out what they think of the advisor. Your advisor will make or break your graduate experience.”