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Name: Erik Hakanson
Title: Ph.D. Research Assistant
Phone: 406-243-6211
Email:

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Erik Hakanson is a PhD Research Assistant at the National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis, College of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana.

Erik is currently writing his dissertation on the interaction of organizational, technological and political factors affecting the production and use of ecological information in U.S. Forest Service fuels management. Ecological information is critical for the goal of coordinated landscape-scale fuels management in the National Fire Plan and the Federal Wildland Fire Policy as well as the agency's mission of sustainable forest management. The objective of this research is to explain how the interrelationship of these factors facilitate or hinder the production and use of commensurable, spatially explicit representations of current and desired future conditions necessary for a coordinated landscape-scale approach to sustainable fuels management. Research methods from the disciplines of social studies of science and technology and workplace studies for systems design are employed to analyze multiple case studies of fuels management practices at the District and Forest levels of the U.S Forest Service.

Erik participates in various Fire Center activities including assignments with the Center's Fire Intelligence Module. Most recently Erik completed an assignment with an Area Command Team (Zimmerman) during the 2007 fire season. These activities allow Erik to combine his doctoral research with his broader research interests in the ongoing efforts of the Federal Agencies to align and coordinate fuels management and wildfire suppression policies and practices.

Erik has presented preliminary findings from a portion of this research at the 2nd Fire Behavior and Fuels Conference titled "Institutional factors affecting the use of decision support tools and ecological data in fuels management at the project planning level in the US Forest Service."