Esther is a PhD researcher at the University of East Anglia working on the project “Climate change impacts on wildfire risk in seasonally dry forests” under the supervision of Dr. Matthew Jones and with the support of the ARIES Doctoral Partnership.
The project focuses on how lightning affects wildfire patterns. Through geospatial analysis, Esther will combine lightning observations with wildfire footprints and observed fire hotspots. The key, regional climatic thresholds conditional for lightning ignitions of wildfires will be investigated and use to project future lightning-ignited wildfire risk based on projections from climate models.
Esther holds a first-class BSc (Hons) Mathematics from the University of Warwick and an MSc Applied Meteorology with distinction from the University of Reading. During her time in Reading, she worked with the Urban Climate Services team at the Met Office and Reading Borough Council to produce local information about climate change and its impacts in Reading.
