Crystal Kolden

Crystal Kolden is a wildfire scientist (pyrogeographer) who left the University of California, Merced to join the University of British Columbia Okanagan's Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science in Canada, as an Eddie Goldenberg Research Chair of Canada in Wildfire Resilience.

The appointment was announced August 27, 2026 as part of UBC's first cohort of nine Eddie Goldenberg Research Chairs, with her move set to begin in September 2026.

Kolden began her career as a wildland firefighter for the US Forest Service, later working as a federal land manager and environmental consultant before moving into research on how fire relates to climate, vegetation, and human activity. At UBC, she will use British Columbia's Okanagan Valley as a living laboratory to identify landscape features that resist extreme wildfires, integrating climate science, fire ecology, engineering, and Indigenous fire leadership to build nature-based wildfire resilience solutions. She was drawn to UBC as Canada has become the epicenter of the global wildfire crisis, building on the university's existing Centre for Wildfire Co-existence and Canadian Prescribed Fire Training Program.