Amanda Cravens

Amanda Cravens is a Research Social Scientist at the USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center. Her interdisciplinary research interests include the translation of scientific information into decision making, policies and institutions that influence environmental management, and understanding the cognitive and social processes that make decision support tools work effectively. Her disciplinary training includes geography, policy/institutional analysis, and the learning sciences. Her research spans resource areas, with recent and current projects focusing on decision support for coastal hazards, human dimensions of ecological drought, socioeconomic aspects of water availability, and land manager decision making in the face of ecological transformation. She is also very interested in the practice of interdisciplinary science and has served as a member of multiple working groups as well as published on the role of creativity in science. Amanda received her Ph.D. from Stanford’s Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources and an M.A. in Geography from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Prior to joining USGS, she was a postdoctoral Early Career Fellow at Stanford Law School. She was a Mendenhall Fellow at the Fort Collins Science Center and NC CASC from 2015 to 2017.