Julia E. Hammett, Ecological Anthropologist and Community College Professor, was born in McAllen, Texas in the Rio Grande Valley. She began her college career at University of Nevada, Las Vegas and finished her bachelor’s at San Jose State University. Her doctoral thesis explores ancient cultural landscapes and land use patterns in Coastal California, specifically how Chumash may have used their generational knowledge of fire ecology as a resource management practice. She has done fieldwork in five regions of North America: California, the Great Basin, the Southwest, the Southeast and the Columbia Plateau. Her research combines ecology, botany, archaeology, and ethnohistory. She has a profound relationship with landscapes, which is reflected in her writing.

She lives at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in Reno, Nevada.