Ken Alex is the director of Project Climate at the University of California at Berkeley Center for Law, Energy, & Environment, focusing on the most promising climate solutions and moving them more quickly to policy and scale. Projects include GrizzlyCorps and Climate Break. From 2011 to 2018, Ken was a Senior Policy Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown, the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, and the Chair of the Strategic Growth Council, focusing on climate, energy, environment, and land use issues, where he initiated projects including CivicSpark and the Under2 Coalition. Ken is a graduate of Harvard Law School and holds a B.A. in political theory from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Dr. Alex Hall is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at UCLA and Director of the UCLA Center for Climate Science. His research is aimed at simulating, predicting, and understanding climate change impacts at scales relevant to decision-makers, especially in California and the Western U.S. Dr. Hall’s research is focused on improving predictions of future changes in the physical climate system. His research group at UCLA is currently studying the future climate of California and the Western U.S., especially dimensions relating to water and fire. At UCLA, Dr. Hall teaches climate-related courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and recently launched a new major in Climate Science.

Lara Kueppers is a professor in the Energy and Resources group at UC Berkeley where she studies climate change effects on Rocky Mountain and Sierra Nevada forests. This includes field experiments that simulate future warmer conditions, as well as computer models of forest dynamics. She also is a scientist at Berkeley Lab, where she is a co-investigator of the Next Generation Ecosystem Experiments - Tropics project, leading studies of cyclone, fire and deforestation/reforestation effects in tropical forests.

Rick Martinez has over forty years in public safety service. Rising through the ranks he served in nearly every fire operational and administrative position to include twelve years as fire chief. During his tenure as fire chief, he guided the consolidation of multiple fire departments forming the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District, the seventh largest local fire department in the State of California and established the first local government wildland helicopter program in northern California. Following his initial retirement from the fire service he served as the Chief of Emergency Services for the Sacramento City and County Office of Emergency Services and the Yolo County Office of Emergency Services. He later served as the Executive Director of the California Fire Foundation.

Dr. John J. Battles is a professor of Forest Ecology at UC Berkeley. The goal of his research program is to know how and why forests change. His efforts are guided by the conviction that our understanding must apply to specific forests with all the attendant complexities and idiosyncrasies. Thus robust, quantitative field studies form the core of his approach. Answering these questions is more than just an interesting academic puzzle. As a result of human enterprise (e.g., pollution, land transformations, biotic additions and losses), many forest ecosystems will experience fundamentally novel challenges. In the face of this uncertainty, we need to understand the dynamics well enough to anticipate the likely direction and magnitude of responses.

Dr. İlkay Altıntaş is a research scientist at the University of California San Diego, is the Chief Data Science Officer of the San Diego Supercomputer Center as well as a Founding Fellow of the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute. She is the Founding Director of the Workflows for Data Science (WorDS) Center of Excellence and the WIFIRE Lab.The WoRDS Center specializes in the development of methods, cyberinfrastructure, and workflows for computational data science and its translation to practical applications. The WIFIRE Lab is focused on artificial intelligence methods for an all-hazards knowledge cyberinfrastructure, becoming a management layer from the data collection to modeling efforts, and has achieved significant success in helping to manage wildfires.

Dr. Scott Stephens a professor at UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. He is interested in the interactions of wildland fire and ecosystems. This includes how prehistoric fires once interacted with ecosystems, how current wildland fires are affecting ecosystems, and how future fires, management, and climate change will impact the ecosystems of western North America. Dr. Stephens is also interested in wildland fire and forest policy and how it can be improved to meet the challenges of the next decades, both in the US and internationally.

Andrew is an experienced executive with two decades working in insurtech.  As the founder and ceo of RockRose Risk and Kettle Re, he has helped build one of the largest wildfire parametric insurers on the West Coast. Before Kettle, he was the Head of Digital for Argo Group and started his career at Allstate Insurance.

Jeff Meston currently serves as the Executive Director of the California Fire Chiefs Association (CFCA). He is also a third-generation firefighter and 45+ year veteran of the fire service, having served city, county, special district, private, Tribal, and statewide fire agencies, departments, and organizations. He holds an MPA and is a California Certified Fire Chief & National Fire Academy EFO. He has served in a number of roles, including President of the Marin County and Lake Tahoe Regional Fire Chiefs Associations, course developer and instructor for the National Fire Academy residency programs and CFSTES, Acting City Manager and Fire Chief for South Lake Tahoe, and Deputy Chief for CalOES Fire/Rescue. He has also served on the Board of Directors for FIRESCOPE and as the Executive Director for the CSFA.

Dr. David Saah has been broadly trained as an environmental scientist with expertise in a number of areas including: landscape ecology, ecosystem ecology, hydrology, geomorphology, ecosystem modeling, natural hazard modeling, remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS) and geospatial analysis. He has used these skills to conduct research primarily at the landscape level in a variety of systems. Dr. Saah has participated in research projects throughout the United States and internationally. His academic research uses integrated geospatial science for multi–scale mapping, monitoring and modeling of environmental spatial heterogeneity, particularly in riparian, savanna, and forest ecosystems. 

Marybel Batjer has an extensive background in helping clients and organizations develop solutions and strategies that solve problems and make public policy work more effectively for the private and public sectors. Most recently, through California Strategies LLC, she has worked across sectors to assist with client needs, primarily in policy areas in water, energy, and climate change, including decarbonizing the economy, wildfire mitigation, and much more. Her positions have spanned across private and public sectors - from the Pentagon to the White House to state houses in two states. She has deep knowledge in highly regulated industries like gaming and has served as chief regulator of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), overseeing privately held utilities in California. 

Jonathan Parfrey is the founding director of Climate Resolve, an advocacy organization focusing on human resilience and adaptation to extreme weather events. Jonathan served as a commissioner at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (2008-2013). He is a founder and board member of CicLAvia, the popular street event, as well as a founder of the statewide Alliance of Regional Collaboratives for Climate Adaptation. He directed the GREEN LA Coalition (2007-2010) and served as the Los Angeles director of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization Physicians for Social Responsibility (1994 to 2007). He is a member of the LA28 Olympics and Paralympic Games Sustainability Working Group. He served on the Los Angeles County Blue Ribbon Commission on Climate Action and Fire-Safe Recovery. He coauthored two of Climate Resolve's studies on local wildfires: one concerning the 2018 Woolsey Fire and the other on the 2025 Eaton and Palisades Fires.