Erica Smithwick, professor of geography at Penn State, is a landscape and ecosystem ecologist. Her laboratory group is actively involved in understanding how a wide range of disturbances, especially fire, affect ecosystem function at landscape scales.

Smithwick’s work is increasingly focused on problems that require inter- and trans-disciplinary teamwork to address complex environmental challenges. One of these projects, Visualizing Forest Futures, funded by the NSF, seeks to address how indigenous and western knowledge systems can be best used to address forest sustainability under climate variability, in partnership with the Menominee tribal nation in northern Wisconsin. Smithwick serves as the PI of the project.