Lily Jane Clarke held a Fulbright Student Research Scholarship in Nepal in 2016-17, studying the social values around wild and cultivated mushrooms in Nepal. She has conducted research on the mycorrhizal potential of morels in post-burn areas in the Western United States as a Presidential Scholar at Lewis & Clark College and in Germany as a Guest Scientist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research. Following her experiences in Nepal, she used her photography skills and background in ecological sciences to evaluate the last potential wilderness areas in the Sierra Nevada Mountains for The Wilderness Society. She then pursued and graduated with a Masters in Systems Ecology from the W.A. Franke College of Forestry, University of Montana, with a focus on wildfire science and a thesis on human community resilience to wildfire. She has served as a wildland firefighter for the US Forest Service for three seasons, and is excited to now serve as a Research Associate for the GIIS.