The Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy

Dr. Asmeret Asefaw Berhe is a Professor of Soil Biogeochemistry and Falasco Chair in Earth Sciences and Geology at the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of California, Merced. She previously served as the Director of the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Her research interest lies at the intersection of soil science, geochemistry, global change science, and political ecology. Prof. Berhe’s work seeks to improve our understanding of how the soil system regulates the earth’s climate and the dynamic two-way relationship between soil and human communities. Numerous awards and honors have recognized her scholarly contributions and efforts to improve equity and inclusion in STEM. She is an Elected member of the US National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Geological Society of America, and a member of the inaugural class of the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine's New Voices in Science, Engineering, and Medicine.

Dave is the Deputy Chief of Research and Development for the Forest Service, the largest agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As the agency’s leading scientist, Dave directs, coordinates, and integrates the vast network of all research activities, working with regions, stations, and others on a variety of activities. Those include work related to scientific information and innovation of technologies that support management of the nation’s diverse forests and rangelands. Dave helps to ensure the agency’s data and information support forest and rangeland conservation and management. This work relies on the effective collaboration with other deputy areas, stations, regions, and a broad network of other land management agencies, public and private, as well as research partners. The agency’s scientific work provides the U.S. with valuable economic, health and environmental benefits through the work executed by nearly 1,000 employees, including 450 research scientists working in five research stations, two institutes, one urban field station and on 81 experimental forests. The results are more than 59,000 peer-reviewed publications and more than 700 data sets, all of which are available to the public. The work of Research and Development is further expanded by 413 agreements with academia and other partners valued at $62 million. Prior to his appointment to Research and Development, Dave served as the Director of Forest Management, Range Management, and Vegetation Ecology for the National Forest System in Washington, D.C. In that role, he led the agency’s efforts to manage 174 national forests and grasslands for sustainable grazing and timber production, the provision of wildlife habitat, clean water, carbon sequestration, species conservation, and a range of other benefits. He also oversaw the development of the agency’s “Growing and Nurturing Resilient Forests: A Reforestation Strategy for the National Forest System,” released in 2022, that address severe threats to forested landscapes and aims to address reforestation on national forests to lay the foundation for future resilient forests. Dave has been in federal service for more than 15 years. He started his federal service as a post-doctoral research ecologist with the North Central Research Station and spent a decade as a science center director for the U.S. Geological Survey, an agency with the U.S. Department of the Interior. Dave also served as state forester and chief of the Division of Forestry, an arm of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. He also worked as a conservation scientist with The Nature Conservancy, a non-profit organization with a grounding in rigorous science that fosters an innovative conservation approach. Dave is a Sherburn, Minnesota, native. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and a master’s degree in Botany and Plant Pathology from the University of Maine. He has a doctorate in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from the University of Minnesota.