2025 AFE Awards
We are proud to announce our 2025 award winners—Gavin Jones and Heather Alexander! We really enjoyed celebrating our 2025 AFE Awardees in New Orleans, LA at the 11th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress. Congratulations!
Early career award: Dr. Gavin jones
Gavin (he/him) is a Research Ecologist with Rocky Mountain Research Station – Wildlife Ecology Program (USDA Forest Service) and holds an appointment as an adjunct Assistant Professor in the Biology Department at the University of New Mexico. He completed his M.Sc. and Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and did postdoctoral research at the University of Florida. Gavin is an Associate Editor at Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment and Fire Ecology which are the flagship peer-reviewed scientific journals of the Ecological Society of America and the Association for Fire Ecology, respectively. Gavin has received recognition for early career research achievement from several professional societies and institutions including the National Academy of Sciences (2025 Kavli Fellow), the Association for Fire Ecology (2025 Early Career Award), the American Ornithological Society (2024 Ned K. Johnson Early Investigator), and the USDA (2022 Early Career Scientist).
Distinguished Leader Award: Dr. Heather ALexander
Dr. Heather D. Alexander is a professor of forest and fire ecology in the College of Forestry, Wildlife, and Environment at Auburn University. Her research focuses on understanding forest ecosystem vulnerability in the face of changing fire disturbance regimes using observations across natural gradients and field–based experimental manipulations. She has studied the implications of fire suppression and ‘mesophication’ on composition, structure, and flammability of oak, mixed, and pine forests of the eastern U.S. for 20 years and has spent over a decade investigating wildfire implications for forest growth and regeneration dynamics in Siberian forests underlain by permafrost soils.
