Prior to coming to UC Merced in 2006, he spent six years in the Climate Research Division of Scripps Institution of Oceanography as a Post-graduate Researcher and an Assistant Project Scientist. His research interests include applied climatology and seasonal forecasting for wildfire management; climate change impacts on wildfire and related aspects of mountain hydrology; wildfire related emissions and carbon fluxes; residential property losses; and paleo reconstructions of climate-wildfire interactions. Dr. Westerling holds a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles; and a Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego. He has published extensively on wildfire and climate in the western United States.