Dr. Shelley Crausbay is an experienced ecologist with a long history of working to advance our understanding of climate impacts on ecosystems and provide vision and leadership to promote climate-resilient and equitable land management and planning.
Her areas of expertise include the ecological role of drought in a changing climate, the likelihood of ecological transformation with climate change, and conceptual frameworks to aid natural resource management decisions.
Shelley is also part of a recent shift in the resource management paradigm with significant contribution to the development of the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework to help natural resource managers grapple with climate-driven ecological transformations in a strategic, forward-looking way. She has experience as a Senior Scientist at a non-profit focused on innovative conservation science and until August 2025, Shelley served as a climate adaptation specialist with the United States Forest Service’s Office of Sustainability and Climate. There, she worked to accelerate the adoption of climate-informed and socially equitable land management nation-wide by advising on policy changes and providing place-based climate products and solutions.
Currently, she is the Senior Urban Forest Planner for the city in which she lives. Shelley has a background in planning, plant community ecology, paleoecology, and climatology with a PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin, an MS in Plant Biology from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor’s in landscape architecture from Texas A&M University.
