Frank Kanawha Lake is a Research Ecologist, and the Tribal Liaison/Climate Change contact for the Pacific Southwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service. 

His research involves wildland fire effects, indigenous knowledge, tribal agroforestry, Climate Change, and ethno-ecology with an emphasis on cultural management and fire ecology of forest, shrub, grassland and riparian environments in the Kdlamath-Siskiyou and Pacific Northwest regions. Other projects and research include: American Indian Tribes and Climate Change; Agroforestry practices of Indigenous and tribal people, Indigenous Fire Stewardship/Cultural burning, and Wildland Fire effects on Heritage and Cultural Resources. 

He mentors and serves as a graduate committee member for several students working on tribal food security, wildland fire, and forest management. He is a Fire Line Qualified Resource Advisory (REAF) working on wildland fires with agencies and tribes. Frank is the Forest Service PSW coordinating scientist to the Western Klamath Restoration Partnership and for the Yurok Redwood Experimental Forest. 

His current focus is on Indigenous Knowledge data governance regarding the Co-production of Knowledge for research and resource management. Frank is of mixed Native American and European ancestry, being raised with and identifying more with his Karuk and Yurok family’s heritage.