Jeffrey Jenkins is an Assistant Professor of Parks and Protected Areas in the Department of Management of Complex Systems at University of California, Merced. Dr. Jenkins is trained as a human-environment geographer and regional planner and draws from a multiple methods approach to inform management actions. His work focusses on parks as interconnected systems with surrounding communities and landscapes, is situated in the evolution of scientifically informed management outcomes and political-legal realities and operates in the context of global change and its localized impacts. This includes topics related to recreation and tourism; climate change and hazards; the wildland-urban interface; and human-dimensions of conservation. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in geographic information systems, parks management, and environmental governance and decision-making. Dr. Jenkins is part of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute and member of both the Management of Complex Systems and Environmental Systems graduate groups. He is also involved with the National Parks Institute executive leadership seminar, which works with federal, state, and international park partners to facilitate collaborative exchange of ideas and information.
Recent Publications
Jenkins, J., Arroyave, F., Brown, M., Chavez, J., Ly, J., Origel, H., & Wetrosky, J. (2021). Assessing Impacts to National Park Visitation From COVID-19: A New Normal for Yosemite?. Case Studies in the Environment, 5(1).
Jenkins, J., van Wagtendonk, J., and Fincher, M. (2021). The evolution of management science to inform overnight visitor use carrying capacity in Yosemite Wilderness. International Journal of Wilderness, 27 (2): 22-39
Jenkins, J., Milligan, B., and Huang, Y. (2020). Seeing the forest for more than the trees: aesthetic and contextual malleability of preferences for climate change adaptation strategies. Ecology & Society, 25(4): 7.
Arroyave, F. J., Petersen, A. M., Jenkins, J., & Hurtado, R. (2020). Multiplex networks reveal geographic constraints on illicit wildlife trafficking. Applied Network Science, 5(1), 1-20.
Jenkins, J., and Brown, M. (2019). Giant Sequoia - Forest, Monument, or Park?: Political-legal mandates and socio-ecological complexity shaping landscape-level management. Society & Natural Resources, 33(6): 721-737.
Jenkins, J., Fleenor, A., and Dietz, F. (2019). Moving beyond the frame: Geovisualization of landscape change along the southwestern edge of Yosemite National Park. Journal of Geovisualization and Spatial Analysis, 3(9).
Jenkins, J. (2018). A ‘deep’ aesthetics of contested landscapes: Visions of land use as competing temporalities. Geoforum, 95: 35-45.
Jenkins, J. (2018). Incommensurable or inexorable?: Comparing the economic, ecological, and social values of exchanged multiple use lands. Applied Geography, 94: 190-198.
Jenkins, J., and Jenkins, M. (2017). Managed migration of Coast Redwoods: Subjectivity of stakeholders in Oregon’s land use planning community. Environment and Natural Resources Research, (7)3.
