April 25, 2025
By Alyssa Mineau, PhD Student, New Mexico State University
On October 2–3, 2024, the Transformation Network hosted a Wildfire and Watershed Symposium for our Wildfire and Watershed Collaborative Working Group in Albuquerque, NM. This gathering brought together researchers, practitioners, and students to identify the most pressing challenges in wildfire management across the Intermountain West—and to shape the research questions that will guide our work in the years ahead.
As part of the workshop, we asked attendees to “map out” how they would present their ideas to the public—from their responses, we created a StoryMap. The intent of our StoryMap was to share what we learned from this workshop, and how this knowledge will guide our research to improve the health of our forests and watersheds. This is the Transformation Network’s first-ever StoryMap, designed not just to document the event, but to highlight the power of storytelling in science. Too often, scientific research is inaccessible to the public—we believe that clear, compelling narratives are essential for building trust, understanding, and action. To demonstrate this, our StoryMap includes a brief introduction to wildfire science, insights into what collaboration in research can look like, and discussions of our research focuses and why they matter.
To learn more about the Wildfire and Watershed Symposium, read the summary report here.
Explore the StoryMap below or open it in a new tab here.