Dr. Erica Smithwick, Distinguished Professor of Geography, is a landscape and ecosystem ecologist. She is the Director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute and Associate Director of the Institute of Energy and the Environment. Smithwick leads the Penn State Climate Consortium that brings together interdisciplinary researchers in partnership with society to innovate climate solutions. Smithwick is also a former director of the Ecology Institute and the Center for Landscape Dynamics.
Smithwick’s research aims to support sustainable land management decision-making under climate change, with particular focus on forest resilience to wildfire, natural carbon sequestration strategies, and Indigenous knowledge systems. She has worked extensively across the U.S., including in the Mid-Atlantic, western U.S., and Alaska. In addition, Dr. Smithwick and has many past or ongoing research projects in Africa (Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, and Zambia). She served as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar in South Africa.
Prior to joining Penn State, Smithwick was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, supervised by Dr. Monica Turner. She received her M.S. in Resource Conservation and Forestry from the University of Montana in Missoula, MT and her Ph.D. from Oregon State University College of Forestry, advised by Dr. Mark Harmon and Warren Cohen. Her undergraduate degree is in Geological Sciences and Environmental Studies from Tufts University.
Smithwick is also one of the Science Moms, connecting parents with information to address climate change in their own communities.