Awards

Morag Clinton, an Assistant Professor of Veterinary Anatomy in the UAF Department of Veterinary Medicine, for “Boreal fires as potential factors in the incidence and severity of Pacific salmon disease.” Clinton and a pair of undergraduates were funded to conduct fieldwork to determine how boreal forest fires affect the incidence and severity of infections of Proliferative Kidney Disease in salmonids.

Jeffrey Muehlbauer, an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies in the UAF Institute of Arctic Biology, for “Wildfire effects on aquatic biodiversity measured using eDNA.” Muehlbauer, a postdoc, and a staff member were funded to use eDNA metabarcoding samples to assess wildfire influence on freshwater biodiversity at a regional scale within Interior Alaska.

Kristin Timm, a Research Associate with the UAF Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center, for “Understanding household resilience through fire risk information processing.” Timm was funded to use eye tracking technology to investigate how two recent wildfire publications with different visualizations and messages are visually attended to and processed by audiences.

Subhabrata Dev, a Research Assistant Professor with the UAF Water and Environmental Research Center, for “Investigating impact of 2021 Munson Creek Wildfire on the localized microbial communities and water quality.” Dev and an M.S. student were funded to analyze water and soil samples from the vicinity of the Munson Creek Fire  for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), metals, and dissolved anions (as well as conduct microbial analyses of soil) to better understand the fire’s short- and long-term impacts on soil and water quality.

Jeffrey Muehlbauer, an Assistant Professor with the UAF Institute of Arctic Biology, for “Woody debris export to large rivers following wildfire.” Muehlbauer and an undergraduate were funded to work to better understand the impacts of fire on level of riverine large woody debris by sampling for the debris at multiple waterways both affected and unaffected by wildfires.

Thomas Ballinger, a Research Assistant Professor at the UAF International Arctic Research Center, for “Alaska wildfire activity and atmospheric blocking: An evaluation of subseasonal-to-seasonal linkages.” Ballinger was funded to assess and quantify subseasonal-to-seasonal connections between the Alaska Blocking Index – a measure of air circulation in the middle troposphere above Alaska - and wildfire activity.

Jessie Young-Robertson, a Research Assistant Professor with the UAF Institute of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Extension, for “Tree Water Content: A multi-year dataset of live fuel moisture for Interior Alaska.” Young-Robertson was funded to process and share data on the live fuel moisture content (LFMC) of multiple species of boreal trees and shrubs over variable environmental conditions.

Micah Hahn, an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at the UAA Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies, for “Assessing the role of preparedness, social supports, and trust in leadership in reducing mental health problems associated with a recent Alaskan wildfire.” Hahn received partial funding to deliver a survey to people impacted by the 2019 Swan Lake Fire to help better identify who is most likely to experience distress during a wildfire, and to pinpoint adaptation strategies.

Micah Hahn, an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at the UAA Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies, for “Modeling the association between cardiorespiratory hospitalizations and particulate matter from wildfire smoke in Anchorage and Fairbanks to support adaptation and resilience planning.” Hahn was funded to study data on air quality and emergency room visits to determine whether the heat and short-term cumulative smoke exposure experienced within a fire season may exacerbate the impact of acute smoke exposure on respiratory and cardiorespiratory health.

Sveta Yamin-Pasternak, a Term Assistant Professor in the UAF Department of Anthropology and Water and Environmental Research Center, for “Morel trends in Alaska’s boreal forest, perspectives from local foragers.” Yamin-Pasternak was funded to use archived data and insight from morel foragers in Fairbanks and Galena to examine interdependencies of morel fruiting and boreal forest fires.

Jacob Adams, an M.S. student with the UAF Institute of Arctic Biology, for “Fire influence on primary production in boreal streams.” Adams was funded to study the effects of recent fires and near-stream burning on primary production in boreal streams by monitoring whole-stream metabolism of four streams draining recently burned catchments.

William Samuel, an M.S. student in Fisheries in the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Assessing the effects of wildfire on beaver dams in a boreal ecosystem, Interior Alaska.” Samuel was funded to use digital elevation models, historical geospatial fire data, and high-resolution satellite imagery to investigate relationships between beaver damming and wildfires in Interior watersheds.

Elizabeth Hinkle, a Ph.D student in the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Science, for “Arctic Grayling movement and genetic relatedness in response to wildfire.” Hinkle was funded to use DNA sequencing techniques to study how wildfires impact the dispersal patterns of Arctic Grayling in the Chena River basin.

Elizabeth Hinkle, a Ph.D student in Fisheries at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Post-wildfire response of stream habitat and aquatic macroinvertebrate assemblages in the boreal forest.” Hinkle was funded to conduct sampling in two Interior Alaska streams, one of which burned in summer 2019 and the other of which has not burned for more then 80 years, to study the impacts of fire on stream habitat and on the abundance and diversity of macroinvertebrates.

Chris Smith, a master’s student in Geography at the UAF Department of Geoscience, for “MaD BoV (Mapping Detection of Boreal Vegetation).” Smith was funded to engage Alaskans in collecting geotagged photos of vegetation cover from geographically dispersed and remote sites in order to ground truth Boreal Fires map products.

Zachary Redman, an Associate Professor of Chemistry with the UAA Department of Chemistry, for “Molecular characterization of seasonal dissolved organic matter exports along a glacial gradient in Kachemak Bay.” Redman and an undergraduate were funded to use field sampling to characterize the influence of glacially derived headwaters on the molecular composition of dissolved organic matter transported into Kachemak Bay.

Erik Schoen, a Research Assistant Professor with the UAF International Arctic Research Center, for “I can see clearly now: How turbidity influences fish and food webs in the Gulf of Alaska.” Schoen and an undergraduate assistant were funded to combine tank experiments with field observations to study how spatial variation and climate-driven directional changes to turbidity affect the habitat selection and foraging ecology of key fish species in the coastal Gulf of Alaska, and how these processes may scale up to influence food web structure and important fisheries.

Lauren Sutton, a Term Assistant Professor with the UAA Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, for “From taxonomy to function – a functional traits approach to nearshore fish communities in glacially influenced watersheds.” Sutton was funded to use existing EPSCoR data of nearshore fish assemblages in Kachemak Bay to analyze their functional composition based on biological traits.

Brian Ulaski, a postdoctoral researcher with the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Glacial influence on oyster farm fouling communities.” Ulaski was funded to sample at a pair of Kachemak Bay oyster farms to study which fouling organisms are associated with oyster farm structures in a high-latitude estuary, and how these fouling communities differ in and out of glacial areas.

Jessica Glass, an Assistant Professor at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Leveraging eDNA metabarcoding to quantify coastal marine community composition along glacial gradients in the Gulf of Alaska.” Glass and an undergraduate were funded to conduct eDNA barcoding of fish and invertebrates to study community composition across Fire & Ice’s 10 Coastal Margins research sites, then ground-truth the results by comparing them to findings from beach seining.

Scott Gabara, a postdoctoral researcher at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Effects of glacial melt on nearshore seaweed and herbivore nutritional quality.” Gabara and two undergraduates were funded to gather data to estimate the nutritional consequences of glacier melt on seaweeds in Southeast and Southcentral Alaska and the resulting impact to consumers.

Katrin Iken, a Professor of Marine Biology at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Influence of glacial discharge conditions on Fucus biochemical composition.” Iken and an undergraduate were funded to analyze samples of Fucus distichus seaweed collected by Coastal Margins researchers in Kachemak Bay to test the hypothesis that body condition in the species decreases with increased glacial discharge, despite its higher abundance in watersheds with higher discharge levels.

Eric Klein, an Assistant Professor of Geological Sciences in the UAA Department of Geological Sciences, for “High-resolution water isotope samples reveal changing water sources in proglacial streams feeding Kachemak Bay, Alaska.” Klein was funded to deploy high-frequency water samplers on two Kachemak Bay waterways to better understand the dominant water sources in glacially fed streams, and how these sources vary daily, monthly, and seasonally.

Schery Umanzor, a Research Assistant Professor in the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Ecophysiological responses of Fucus distichus to varying physical and chemical conditions along a glacial to non-glacial gradient.” Umanzor was funded to conduct lab experiments on Fucus seaweed to study its physiological responses to environmental factors linked to glacial inputs.

Benjamin Barst, a postdoctoral researcher at the Alaska Stable Isotope Facility at the UAF Water and Environmental Research Center, for “Investigation of mercury contamination of stream water and nearshore biota collected along a gradient of glacial influence.” Barst was funded to study mercury levels in Alaskan glacial watersheds, focused on mussels and coho salmon collected as part of Coastal Margins research in Lynn Canal and Kachemak Bay.

William Burt, an Assistant Professor or Oceanography in the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Characterizing groundwater input across a glacial gradient in Kachemak Bay using naturally-occurring radium isotopes: A proof-of-concept study.” Burt was funded to conduct a baseline survey of radium isotopes in Kachemak Bay to assess the role of submarine groundwater discharge and other key fluxes in the region’s hydrological and biogeochemical cycles.

Gwenn Hennon, an Assistant Professor of Oceanography in the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, and Jason Fellman, a Research Assistant Professor at the UAS Alaska Coastal Rainforest Center, for “Investigating microbial productivity at the terrestrial-marine interface in Lynn Canal.” Hennon and Fellman were funded to use microbial incubation experiments to study how the concentration and source of riverine dissolved organic matter influence microbial community composition and productivity.

Eric Klein, an Assistant Professor of Geological Sciences in the UAA Department of Geological Sciences, for “Understanding glacier precipitation sources and meltwater contributions to intertidal systems in Kachemak Bay, Alaska.” Klein was funded to collect water and core samples from the Harding Icefield, as well as rain and water vapor isotope samples, to better understand the past and present moisture sources supplying precipitation to Kachemak Bay glaciers as well as the water isotope signatures associated with the glaciers.

Sydney Almgren, an M.S. student in Fisheries in the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences for “Genetic sex determination of Pacific herring in Alaska.” Almgren was funded to use low coverage whole genome sequencing to identify and characterize genomic regions related to sex determination in Pacific herring, and to create simple genetic assays for high-throughput sexing of herring samples.

MacKenzie Hughes, an M.S. student in Marine Biology in the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Direct cascading effects of sea star wasting on rocky intertidal communities.” Hughes was funded to conduct feeding experiments to determine the impacts of sea star wasting on community structure in Alaska’s rocky intertidal zone.

Jordan Jenckes, a Ph.D student in the UAA Department of Geological Sciences, for “Novel investigation into elemental and trace metal micronutrients to the Gulf of Alaska as influenced by glacial recession and delivered by submarine groundwater discharge.” Jenckes was funded to sample water along a transect of shallow groundwater wells, as well as surface water, in the Wosnesenski River drainage to determine the seasonal variability of dissolved trace metal micronutrients and major elements.

Maddi McArthur, an M.S. student in Marine Biology in the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Understanding the relationship among ocean acidification, mussel adhesion and shell strength, and intertidal macro community composition in high-latitude estuaries.” McArthur was funded to process water alkalinity samples to help understand how the structure of high-latitude intertidal macro communities may be shaped by the response of the Pacific blue mussel to ocean acidification.

Drew Porter, an M.S. student in Marine Biology in the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Application of compound-specific stable nitrogen isotope analyses to estimate trophic positions and food web baseline values of coho salmon across a glacial gradient in Alaska.” Porter was funded to apply nitrogen stable isotope analyses to the amino acids of coho salmon collected by the Coastal Margins team in order to ascertain the fishes’ trophic positions and aid in studies of mercury contamination across the research sites.

Kenedy Williams and Hannah Foshee, undergraduate Marine Biology majors at UAS, for “Behavior and physiological impacts on intertidal predator-prey relationships.” Williams and Foshee were funded to use an ocean change experimental system to evaluate the impact of ocean acidification in Lynn Canal estuaries on predator-prey dynamics between sea stars and molluscs.

Brian Ulaski, a Ph.D student at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Associations between drifting and beach-cast macroalgal communities along a glacial gradient.” Ulaski was funded to gather data from beach seines to investigate relationships between near-subtidal drift algae, beach wrack, and their associated macroinvertebrate communities along a glacial to non-glacial gradient.

Jordan Jenckes, a Ph.D student in the UAA Department of Geological Sciences, for “Trace metal micronutrient sources and transport to the intertidal waters of Kachemak Bay, Gulf of Alaska.” Jenckes was funded to study the seasonal origins of trace metals in Kachemak Bay to determine the relative amount of materials deposited from snow and ice versus those deposited from bedrock weathering and soils.

Lindsey Stadler, an M.S. student at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Food web ecology of nearshore fishes along a gradient of glacially influenced watersheds.” Stadler was funded to conduct stomach content analysis of nearshore Kachemak Bay fishes to investigate if and how glacial coverage affects their diet composition.

Josianne Haag, an M.S. student at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Characterizing groundwater discharge and bay connectivity in Kachemak Bay by constraining radium sources.” Haag was funded to use isotope tracing to study the contribution of submarine groundwater discharge to water flux in Kachemak Bay.

Courtney Hart, a Ph.D student at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Using harmful algal bloom monitoring to understand PSP risks and mitigate testing burdens at a shellfish farm in Southeast Alaska.” Hart was funded to establish a water monitoring site at a Juneau oyster farm, to determine whether such sites can be used as an early-warning system for the accumulation of paralytic shellfish toxins.

Amy Dowling, a master’s student in marine biology at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Variability in Pacific blue mussel (Mytilus trossulus) demographics in a glacially influenced estuary.” Dowling was funded to travel to Juneau to learn how to age Pacific blue mussels, enabling her to correlate the age of mussels collected through the Fire and Ice project with the drivers of environmental variability found along glacial gradients.

Carolyn Hamman, a master’s student in fisheries at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “A regional comparison of thermotolerance in saffron cod Eleginus gracilis based on HSP70 concentrations at the critical thermal maximum.” Hammam was funded to use laboratory experiments to determine whether saffron cod populations from the Beaufort Sea and the Gulf of Alaska have adopted population-specific thermal adaptations for their respective regions.

Jordan Jenckes, a master’s student in geology at the UAA Department of Geological Sciences, for “Groundwater contributions to streams and intertidal waters of Kachemak Bay.” Jenckes was funded to combine a stable isotope mixing model with tritium analysis to determine the timing and amount of groundwater entering stream channels in Kachemak Bay watersheds as a function of season and watershed type across a glacial- to precipitation-fed gradient.

James Schloemer, a master’s student in marine biology at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Watershed influence on terrestrial resource use in nearshore marine consumers.” Schloemer was funded to combine isotope mixing models and remote sensing of watersheds to document terrestrial resource use by terrestrial invertebrates, and to identify which watershed characteristics contribute most to the type of organic matter being used by the invertebrates.

Jeff Libby, Executive Director of the UAA Arctic Domain Awareness Center, for “ADAC Arctic Summer Internship Program.” Libby was funded to support participation by 5-6 students in a spring/summer 2022 internship with the Arctic Domain Awareness Center, including travel to Anchorage and to Utqiaġvik.   

Sanjay Pyare, a Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences at UAS, for “A pre-college STEM springboard: Team-based, environmental problem-solving and project-based learning in coastal communities of Southeast Alaska.” Pyare and faculty collaborators were funded to deliver an immersive short course called the “Community Environmental-Resource Challenge” to high-school students in Yakutat and Haines.

Erin Trochim, a Research Assistant Professor with the Alaska Center for Energy and Power at UAF, for “Learning by visualizing Gulf of Alaska coastal changes with big data.” Trochim was funded to develop Google Earth Engine lessons and visualizations of Alaska coastal areas for use by the public to explore phenomena like glacier, river and coastal changes due to weather and climate variability.

Alison Gardell, an Assistant Professor of Biology at UAA Kenai Peninsula College, for “Student-centered leadership for a newly established citizen science beluga monitoring project in Cook Inlet, Alaska.” Gardell was funded to support students at Kenai Peninsula College to participate in a project to collect and analyze the distribution and habitat use of endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales.

Carie Green, an Associate Professor of Graduate Education in the UAF School of Education, for “Equipping educators to empower children as environmental stewards.” Green was funded to support a class of six UAF graduate students to investigate childrens’ concepts of environmental stewardship through participatory research projects in Fairbanks, Kenai and Scammon Bay.

Shannon Atkinson DeMaster, a Juneau-based Professor of Fisheries at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, for “Engaging pedagogies for STEM students studying ecological change in Alaska.” DeMaster was funded to  hold a pair of workshops designed to excite members of underrepresented groups about STEM fields, on the topics of “Anatomy and physiology of Alaska’s culturally important marine mammals” and “Environmental applications of drone technologies.”

Anita Moore-Nall, a postdoctoral researcher in the Division of Population Health Sciences at UAA, for “Digital Storytelling: Bridging a Gap in Place-Based Science.” Moore-Nall plans to work with students at Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka to create digital products focused on ecosystem change that are rooted in oral storytelling traditions.

Katie Spellman, a Research Assistant Professor at the International Arctic Research Center, for an effort entitled “Fostering Science: Expanding Access to Science Camp to Youth in Care of the State.” Spellman was funded to lead a team in support of a weeklong summer science camp (picture, above) at the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest exclusively for youths in the Fairbanks-area foster care system.

Chris Guo, a M.S. student in Marine Biology in the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, was funded to attend a pair of virtual workshops on R and RStudio modeling software.

Miles Jordan, an M.F.A. student in Photography at the UAF Department of Art, was funded to travel to New York City to conduct thesis research into Malcolm X’s interest in photography.

Maddi McArthur, an M.S. student in Marine Biology in the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, was funded to purchase the PRIMER 7 and PERMANOVA+ statistical and visualization software packages and to attend two workshops on their use.

Chris Smith, a data analyst with the Geographic Information Network of Alaska at UAF, was funded to attend an online course in creating Python scripts for ArcGIS software.

Theresa Soley, a One Health M.S. student at UAF, was funded to attend the Glaciers Group International Summer School in Glaciology, and to create a visualization and podcast series about the impacts of glaciers on human populations.

Lindsey Stadler, an M.S. student in Marine Biology in the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, was funded to attend a workshop on stable isotope mixing models.

UAF student Sydney Almgren was funded to attend and present research on genetic sex determination of Pacific herring at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF student Shelby Bacus was funded to attend and present research on ocean acidification impacts to the Bering Sea snow crab fishery at the Western Society of Naturalists Annual Meeting in Monterey, California, November 2023.

UAF student Anushree Badola was funded to attend the Alaska EPSCoR IGNITE professional development workshop in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAA staff Joey Besl was funded to travel to Naknek and Dillingham, Alaska to take photos of coastal erosion for use in departmental research communications.

UAF student Dana Bloch was funded to attend and present research on Southeast Alaska oceanography at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF student Caitlyn Brown was funded to attend and present research on Alaska song sparrows at the Alaska Bird Conference Anchorage, Alaska in December 2023.

UAF student James Crimp was funded to attend and present research on abalone cultivation at the Alaska Shellfish Grower’s Association annual meeting and the Alaska Mariculture Conference, both of which take place in February 2024 in Anchorage, Alaska.

UAF student Julian Dann was funded to attend and present research on monitoring change in aufeis extent at the Alaska Forum for the Environment in Anchorage, Alaska in February 2024.

UAF student Lia Domke was funded to attend and present research on nearshore fish assemblages, climate change impacts to at the Western Society of Naturalists Annual Meeting, Monterey, California in November 2023.

UAF postdoc Veronica Farrugia Drakard was funded to attend and present research on climate change impacts to kelp at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF faculty Steven Dykstra was funded to attend and present research on flooding that occurred due to Typhoon Merbok on the Western Alaska coast at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF faculty Jessica Glass was funded to attend the Alaska EPSCoR IGNITE professional development workshop in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF student Maris Goodwin was funded to attend and present research on eDNA Metabarcoding for Biodiversity Assessment at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF student Karen Grosskreutz  was funded to travel to take training courses, “Indigenous Data Sovereignty” and “Indigenous Research Governance” at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona in January 2024.

UAF student Maggie Harings was funded to present research and assist Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve with hosting a workshop on eDNA research in Alaska at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in January 2024.

UAF student Amy Hendricks was funded to attend and present research on drivers of wildfire in Southwest Alaska at the American Meteorological Society annual meeting in Baltimore, Maryland in January 2024.

UAF student Mack Hughes was funded to attend and present research on environmental drivers of sea star wasting at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF student Cameron Jardell was funded to attend and present research on kelp polysaccharide composition at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF student Carter Johnson was funded to attend and present research on sea otters and dungeness crabs at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF staff Brandi Kamermans was funded to attend and present research on the use of environmental DNA techniques to study declining salmon runs in the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim region and clam abundance in Gulf of Alaska at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF student Taylor Kane was funded to  attend and present research on  the snow scorpionfly genome at the Entomological Collections Network annual meeting and the Entomological Society of America annual meeting, both of which take place in National Harbor, Maryland in November 2023.

UAA faculty Mohammad Heidari Kapourchali was funded to attend and present research on wildfire prediction models at the International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications in Jacksonville, Florida in December 2023.

UAF student Paige Kehoe was funded to attend and present research on  impacts of beavers on organic matter cycling in permafrost landscapes at the BIOGEOMON International Symposium on Ecosystem Behavior, San Juan, Puerto Rico in January 2024.

UAF student Alex Knobloch was funded to attend and present research on glacially influenced high-latitude zooplankton community structure in Lynn Canal, Southeast Alaska at the Ocean Science Meeting in New Orleans, Louisianna in February 2024.

UAF student Chloe Kotik was funded to attend and present research on life history and anthropogenic contamination of mammal-eating killer whales at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF student Sonia Kumar was funded to attend and present research on  using environmental DNA techniques to identify Cook Inlet beluga prey at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF faculty Rick Lader was funded to travel to Juneau to give a presentation on wildfire and climate research for professor Julie Schram's biology seminar class (Biology 492) at the University of Alaska Southeast Juneau campus.

UAF postdoc Kimberly Ledger was funded to attend and present research on the use of environmental DNA techniques to detect species of cod and pollock in the Gulf of Alaska, and the Chukchi and Bering Seas at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF student Vincent Ledvina was funded to attend and present research on auroral beads and substorms at the Space Weather Workshop in Boulder, Colorado, in April 2024.

UAF student Anastasia Maliguine was funded to attend and present research on changing forage conditions for molting Steller’s eiders at the North American Duck Symposium in Portland, Oregon in February 2024.

UAA student Wyatt Matyas was funded to attend and present research on the impact of glacier recession on seasonal dissolved organic matter in glacierized streams at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco, California in December 2023.

UAF faculty Kay McMonigal was funded to attend the Alaska EPSCoR IGNITE professional development workshop in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF student Habiba Moshfeka was funded to travel to receive training in otolith micro-milling  laboratory techniques at the Oregon State University, Portland, Oregon.

UAF student Courtney Pegus was funded to attend and present research on harbor seals in tidewater glacial fjords at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF student David Polashenski was funded to attend and present research on at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco, California in December 2023.

UAS faculty Sanjay Pyare was funded to  travel to at the University of Hawaii, Hilo in November 2023 to collaborate with Hawaii EPSCoR on a rural/Indigenous community-based education project that began with a previous Alaska EPSCoR DEW Seed Award.

UAF student Kathryn Ramirez was funded to attend and present research on influence of climate change on butterflies in the Arctic at the Entomological Society of America in National Harbor Maryland in November 2023.

UAF student Benjamin Rich was funded to attend and present research on introduced Northern Pike predation on  juvenile salmon at the Mat-Su Salmon Science and Conservation Symposium in Palmer, AK November 2023.

UAF faculty Caleb Robbins was funded to attend and present research on stream invertebrates at the American Fisheries Society, Alaska chapter meeting in March 2024.

UAF student Sumana Sahoo was funded to attend and present research on monitoring forest disturbances in Alaska using polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco, California in December 2023.

UAF student Soumitra Sakhalkar was funded to attend the Alaska EPSCoR IGNITE professional  development workshop in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF postdoc Bahareh Sorouri was funded to travel to Northern Arizona Univeristy to receive training on quantitative stable isotope probing (qSIP) in Flagstaff, Arizona.

UAA faculty Lauren Sutton was funded to attend and present research on how seasonality and hydroclimatic variability shape the diversity of nearshore fish communities in glacierized estuaries of Alaska at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF faculty Schery Umanzor was funded to attend the Alaska EPSCoR IGNITE professional development workshop in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAA student Victoria Vandersommen was funded to attend and present research on Antarctic benthic invertebrates at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington in January 2024.

UAF student Sydney Wilkinson was funded to attend and present research on trophic resource use by Arctic fishes in Beaufort Sea coastal lagoons at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

UAF staff Samantha Wiser was funded to attend the Alaska EPSCoR IGNITE professional development workshop in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2024.

Alaska EPSCoR Fire & Ice’s Kachemak Bay and Lynn Canal Stream Teams, part of the Coastal Margins team, received a writing retreat travel grant to gather at the University of Alaska Southeast Juneau campus for a two-day writing intensive to advance six manuscripts that are in preparation for the project. UAA faculty and Fire & Ice PI Lee Ann Munk, postdoctoral researcher Jordan Jenckes, and research professional Aeon Russo a full-time traveled to Juneau for the two-day intensive, hosted by UAS faculty Jason Fellman.

Several researchers from Alaska EPSCoR Fire &Ice Coastal Margins who are working with nearshore fish community data from Kachemak Bay and Lynn Canal received a writing retreat travel grant to facilitate a meeting in Homer, Alaska for collaborating on a manuscript in preparation titled “Divergent Taxonomy, Convergent Function: Diversity of Nearshore Fish Communities in Two Glacial Regions of Alaska.”

UAF faculty Maher Al-Badri was funded to attend and present at the 2023 International Electric Machines and Drives Conference, in San Francisco, California.

UAF student Shelby Bacus was funded to travel to Fairbanks, Alaska from Kodiak, Alaska to use the UAF Advanced Instrumentation Laboratory for her research in June 2023.

UAF student Lok Cheng  was funded to travel to Lake Illiamna.

UAF staff Pat Church was funded to attend the National Council of University Research Administrators Meeting in Washington, D.C.

UAF student Kevin Fitzgerald was funded to complete field work in Kobuk, Alaska.

UAF staff Sarah  Garcia was funded to attend the National Council of University Research Administrators Meeting in Washington, D.C.

UAF student Chelsea Kovalcsik was funded to attend and present at the Wildlife Algal Toxins Research & Response Network Lab in Seattle, Washinton.

UAF student Aaron Lambert was funded to travel to the University of Washingotn Lake Aleknagik, Alaska field camp.

UAF faculty Samuel May was funded to attend and present at the American Fisheries Society Meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

UAF faculty Santosh Panda was funded to attend and present at the 2023 International Geoscience and

Remote Sensing Symposium in Pasadena, California.

UAF faculty Michael Roddewig was funded to participate in DEPSCoR Day at Montana State University.

 UAF student Will Samuel was funded to attend and present at the American Fisheries Society Meeting, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

UAF student Genoa Sullaway was funded to travel to Lake Iliamna, Alaska.

UAF faculty Schery Umanzor was funded to  visit the White Abalone Captive Program at the Bodega Bay Marine Biology Labs in Davis, California.

UAF student Laura Weingartner was funded to attend and present at the Ecology Society of America’s Annual Meeting in Portland, OR.

UAF student Oleksandr Bobrovnikov was funded to attend and present research at the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California in December 2023.

UAF student Mack Hughes was funded to attend and present research at the American Museum of Natural History Student Conference on Conservation Science in New York City, New York in October 2023.

UAF faculty Mario Muscarella was funded to attend and present research at the Ecology Society of America’s Annual Meeting in Portland, OR.

UAF student Jonah Jossart was funded to attend a PRIMER-e online workshop in July 2023.

UAF faculty Kristen Gorman was funded to travel to St Paul Island, Alaska July 2023 for a collaboration with Aleut Community of St Paul Island this summer. We have a grant that is awarded to ACSPI (GLS study) and I have a pilot project through UA Faculty Initiative Fund (GPS study, $29,700). The pilot study is supporting my 3 week trip here this summer and I could use Alaska EPSCoR Travel funds for the travel portion so that I can use the FIF award for my time here (salary). The FIF funds are awarded as F1 funds, thus they are flexible across budget categories. The Alaska EPSCoR Travel Funds would be used to cover airfare and per diem for food for 25 day field trip in July 2023. The food on island is extremely expensive, so this per diem will help. I am trying to cover remaining supply costs, travel, food, and 3 weeks of my time on less than $13,000 on the FIF award as the GPS tags run $1500/each. It is a very tight budget. These Travel Funds would really help allow me to use the FIF funds to cover my time in the field during July 2023.

UAF student Lauren Keller was funded to attend and present research at the Society of Veteran Paleontology in Cincinnati, Ohio October 2023.

UAA faculty Britteny Howell was funded to attend and present research at the American Anthropological Association annual conference, November 2023.

UAF faculty Santosh Panda was funded to attend and present research at the American Association of Geographers in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 2024.

UAF faculty Jessica Glass was funded to host a workshop and participate on a panel at the World Fisheries Congress, March 2024, Seattle, Washington.

UAF faculty Yongwon Kim was funded to attend and present research at the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California in December 2023.

UAF student James Campbell was funded to attend and present research at the American Association for Aerosol Research in Portland Oregon, Oct 2023.

UAF student Tianlang Zhao was funded to attend and present research at the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California in December 2023.

UAF student Brant Woodruff was funded to attend and present research at American Chemical Society, San Fransisco, August 2023.

UAF student Maddi McArthur was funded to attend and present research at Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska, January 2024.

UAF student Anushree Badola was funded to attend and present research at American Association of Geographers in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 2024.

UAF student Phillip (Gus) Lewis was funded to attend and present research at North American Power Symposium in Asheville, North Carolina October 2023.

UAF graduate student Marina Alcantar was funded to attend and present research at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2023.

UAF student Shelby Bacus was funded to attend and present research at the Western Society of Naturalists Annual Meeting, November 2022, in Oxnard, California.

UAA staff Natalie Rouse was funded to attend and present research at the UAF OneHealth, OneWorld Conference February 2022.

UAF student Carter Johnson was funded to attend the Western Society of Naturalists Annual Meeting, November 2022, in Oxnard, California.

UAA faculty Getu Hailu was funded to attend and present at the American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers 2023 Annual Conference in Tampa, Florida, June 2023.

UAF graduate student Hannah Myers was funded to travel to conduct fieldwork and pursue professional development and technical training in Seward, Alaska between May and June 2023 and in Homer, Alaska from between March and August 2023.

UAF graduate student Emily Reynolds was funded to attend and present research at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2023.

UAF student David Polashenski was funded to attend the 2022 AGU Fall Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, December 2022.

UAF graduate student Katherine Corliss was funded to attend and present research at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2023.

UAF faculty Jessie Young-Robertson was funded to attend and present research at the 2022 American Geophysical Union conference in Chicago, Illinois in December 2022.

UAF staff Cassie Pinkel was funded to attend the PRIM&R Annual Conference in December 2022.

UAF staff Carla McCain was funded to attend the PRIM&R Annual Conference in December 2022.

UAF student Emmanuelle Furst was funded to attend and present at the ABVP Symposium in Baltimore, Maryland in April 2023.

UAF student Emily Maxwell was funded to attend the One Health, One Future Conference, in Fairbanks, Alaska, February 2023.

UAA staff Marcus Geist was funded to attend and present at the American Fisheries Society, Alaska Chapter Annual Meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska, March 2023.

UAF graduate student Maris Goodwin was funded to attend the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2023.

UAF graduate student Anushree Badola  was funded to attend and present research at the 2022 American Geophysical Union conference in Chicago, Illinois in December 2022.

UAF student Lindsey Call was funded to participate in the Spatio-temporal Isotope Analytics Lab short course run by the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, August 2022.

UAF student Graeme Durovich was funded to attend the One Health, One Future Conference, in Fairbanks, Alaska, February 2023.

UAF faculty Caley Gasch was funded to attend and present research at the Society for Range Management Annual Meeting in Boise, Idaho, February 2023.

UAF Alaska Sea Grant Fellow Noelle Helder was funded to travel take a professional training course on Multibeam Sonar at the Florida Institute of Oceanography and the Center for Ocean Mapping and Innovative Technologies in St. Petersburg, Florida, January 2023.

UAF student Lia Domke  was funded to attend and present research at the Western Society of Naturalists Scientific Conference in Oxnard, California, November 2022.

UAF student Cameron Jardell was funded to take a course in scientific diving at the Kasitsna bay laboratory March 2023.

UAF student Muriel Dittrich was funded to travel to Kodiak, Alaska in May 2022 to participate in kelp harvest at Blue Evolution.

UAF student Jaide Phelps was funded to attend and present research at the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, Alaska in January 2023.

UAF student James Crimp was funded to travel to Kodiak, Alaska to meet with research collaborators January 2023.

UAS student Jessica Whitney was funded to attend and present research at the Western Society of Naturalists Annual Meeting, November 2022, in Oxnard, California.

UAF student Samantha Wade was funded to attend and present at the One Health, One Future Conference, in Fairbanks, Alaska, February 2023.

UAF student Nevada Elkins was funded to travel to Schery Umanzor's laboratory and experimental kelp farm in Juneau, Alaska, December 2022.

UAF student Dots Sherwood was funded to attend the One Health, One Future Conference, in Fairbanks, Alaska, February 2023.

UAF student and staff Sam Dempster was funded to attend and present research at the 2022 American Geophysical Union conference in Chicago, Illinois in December 2022.

UAF student Soumitra Sakhalkar was funded to attend and present at the International Symposium on Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium in Pasadena, July 2023.

Alaska EPSCoR granted travel awards for both UA and non-UA affiliates for travel to Dillingham, Alaska to attend the Western Alaska Interdisciplinary Science Conference and Forum (WAISC) April 5-6, 2023.

The following applicants were awarded:

Bill Kane
Igiugig Village Council, Alaska Venture Fund
Community-based monitoring capacity

 

Michael Lindemann
UAA FIREWALL
Wildfire forecasting

 

Shelby Bacus, PhD Student
UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences
Climate change impacts to snow crab and Tanner crab

 

Mack Hughes, MS Student
UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences
Trophic changes in Alaska's rocky intertidal ecosystem

 

Harmony Wayner, Alaska Sea Grant Fellow
NOAA Marine Debris Program on an Alaska, University Centre of the Westfjords
Food sovereignty and well-being in Bristol Bay

 

Matthew Scragg, MS student
UAF Institute of Northern Engineering, Water and Environmental Research Center (WERC)
Fresh Eyes on Ice

Reyce Bogardus, PhD Student
UAF Geophysical Institute, Tectonics & Sedimentation Group
Climate impact on storm intensity, preparedness & resiliency

 
Benjamin Americus, Alaska Sea Grant Fellow
Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation
Alaska seafood sustainability certification

 

Sarah Dempsey, Undergraduate Student
UAF Department of Biology and Wildlife
Moose population & habitat in Togiak National Wildlife Refuge

 

UAS faculty Jason Fellman and Eran Hood and UAF (Juneau) faculty Schery Umanzor were funded to travel to Kachemak Bay in summer 2022 to visit Fire & Ice research sites there and facilitate future collaborations within the project. Conversely, UAA graduate student Jordan Jenckes was funded to travel to Juneau in summer 2022 to visit Lynn Canal research sites.

UAF faculty Chris Waigl and graduate student Tianlang Zhao were funded to attend the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in New Orleans in December 2021.

UAF graduate students Alexandra Reich, Carter Johnson and Sonia Kumar were funded to attend a UAF Scientific Diving class at Kasitsna Bay Laboratory in Kachemak Bay in March 2022.

UAF faculty Justin Cramb was funded to attend the 2022 Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology in Philadelphia, Penn. In January 2022.

UAF graduate student Karen Grosskreutz was funded to attend the Society for Applied Anthropology Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah in March 2022.

UAF graduate student Courtney Pegus was funded to attend the Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals in Palm Beach, Florida in August 2022.

UAF graduate student Maddi McArthur was funded to travel to Juneau in fall 2022 to conduct a series of experiments on Pacific blue mussels as part of her thesis research.

UAF graduate student Concepcion Melovidov was funded to travel to Kodiak for marine safety training in December 2021, and to Dutch Harbor in January 2022 to tag snow crabs as part of her thesis project.

UAF graduate student Muriel Dittrich was funded to travel to Haines and Kodiak to meet with community partners and gather samples for a research project on the cultivation of red ribbon seaweed.

UAF graduate student Lindsey Stadler was funded to attend the online Ocean Sciences Meeting in February-March 2022.

UAA undergraduate Spencer Gunter was funded to travel to Juneau in May-June 2022 to assist in a project to identify fatty acid profiles of blue mussels.

UAF graduate student Brett Carrothers was funded to attend the Pacific Offshore Wind Summit in San Francisco, Calif. in March 2022.

UAF graduate student Liza Hasan was funded to attend an online course on the PRIMER 7 software package in February 2022.

UAF graduate student Sabrina Garcia was funded to travel to Craig, Alaska in May-June 2022 to receive hands-on training on how to attach satellite tags to Chinook salmon.

UAF graduate student Mary Stough was funded to attend the American Association of Biological Anthropologists Annual Meeting in Denver, Colo. in March 2022.

UAF postdoc Elizabeth Fischer was funded to travel to Fairbanks in March 2022 to meet with Boreal Fires and Geophysical Institute researchers and to attend the NASA ABOVE Team Meeting and the Arctic Circumpolar Symposium.

UAF postdoc Scott Gabara was funded to attend the University of Alaska Mariculture Conference in Juneau in April 2022.

UAF graduate student Shelby Bacus was funded to travel to the NOAA Kodiak Laboratory in summer 2022 to conduct an experiment examining environmental impacts on juvenile snow crab and Tanner crab.

UAA graduate student Emma Kimball was funded to travel to Santa Barbara, Calif. to attend the Arctic Data Center's Fundamentals in Data Management for Qualitative and Quantitative Arctic Research workshop in April 2022.

UAF graduate student Anushree Badola was funded to attend the ESRI User Conference in San Diego, Calif. in July 2022.

UAF graduate student Genoa Sullaway was funded to travel to Lake Iliamna in August 2022 to conduct field research into sockeye salmon and their zooplankton prey.

UAF graduate student Frances Iannucci was funded to attend the 2022 Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Grand Rapids, Mich. in May 2022.

UAF graduate student Kristin Olson was funded to attend the Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Grand Rapids, Mich. in May 2022.

UAF postdoctoral researcher Joanna Young was funded to attend the International Symposium on Maritime Glaciers in Juneau in June 2022.

UAF faculty Peter Webley was funded to attend the State Science and Technology Institute National Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas in May 2022. 

UAA technician Natalie Rouse was funded to attend the Wildlife Disease Association Conference in Madison, Wisc. in July 2022.

UAF postdoc Laura Timm was funded to attend Woods Hole Marine Biology Labs' annual Workshop on Molecular Evolution in Woods Hole, Mass. in May-June 2022.

UAF graduate student Kunal Bali was funded to attend the GEOS-Chem Meeting in St. Louis in June 2022.

UAF graduate student Lindsay Turner was funded to attend the Reproducible Research Techniques for Synthesis course taught by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) in Santa Barbara, Calif. in September 2022.

UAF graduate students Matt Cheng, Sam Rosenbaum and Lilian Hart were funded to attend the American Fisheries Society annual meeting in Spokane, Wash. in August 2022.

UAF (Juneau) postdoctoral researcher Scott Gabara and UAS undergraduate students Ricardo Medina Soler and Gracelyn Ham were funded to travel to Fairbanks in July 2022 to learn about seawater carbonate chemistry analysis at UAF’s Ocean Acidification Research Center.

UAF faculty Schery Umanzor; UAF postdoctoral researchers Scott Gabara, Remi Pages and Laura Whitmore; UAA graduate student Jordan Jenckes; UAF graduate student James Schloemer; UAF undergraduate Alex Knobloch; and UAS undergraduate Gracelyn Ham were funded to attend the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii in February-March 2022. Gabara was also funded to virtually attend the Western Society of Naturalists meeting in November 2021 and the Alaska Marine Science Symposium meeting in January 2022.

UAF faculty Yongwon Kim; UAF staff members Mark Billingsley and Ned Rozell; and UAF graduate student Jake Cavaiani were funded to attend the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in New Orleans in December 2021.

UAF graduate student Monica Brandhuber was funded to attend the Marine Mammalogy International Conference in Palm Beach, Florida in August 2022.

UAF staff member Pat Church was funded to attend the National Council of University Research Administrators conference in Washington, DC in August 2022. 

UAF graduate student Sarah Clement was funded to attend the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting in San Diego, Calif. in April 2022.

UAA faculty Karen Gallagher was funded to attend the American Speech-Language Hearing Association Conference in Washington D.C. in November 2021.

UAF faculty Glenna Gannon was funded to attend the Global Agriculture Multidisciplinary International Conference in Hilo, Hawaii in March 2022.

UAA faculty Getu Hailu was funded to virtually attend the International Conference on Building Ventilation and Indoor Air Quality in September 2022.

UAA faculty Scott Hamel was funded to attend the Forest Products Society International Conference in Madison, Wisc. in June 2022.

UAA faculty Wael Hassan was funded to virtually attend the 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering in September-October 2021.

UAA graduate student Emma Kimball was funded to attend the Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah in March 2022.

UAA faculty Jeff Libby was funded to support participation by a student from an underrepresented group in a spring/summer 2022 internship with the Arctic Domain Awareness Center, including travel to Anchorage and to Utqiaġvik.                                                        

UAF faculty Jeffrey Muehlbauer was funded to attend the Joint Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Grand Rapids, Mich. in May 2022.

UAF graduate student Hannah Myers was funded to make two trips to Seward and two to Homer in March-September 2022 to perform fieldwork and to meet with an expert in the field of killer whales.

UAA staff member Heather Paulsen was funded to travel to Utqiaġvik in September 2022 to collaborate with students from Ilisagvik College on a coastal erosion project.

UAF staff member Cassie Pinkel  was funded to virtually attend the Social, Behavioral, and Educational Research Conference and the Advancing Ethical Research Conference, both in November 2021.

UAA faculty Corrie Whitmore was funded to virtually attend the annual conference of the American Evaluation Association in November 2021.

UAF faculty Sandra Wildfeuer was funded to attend the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges Annual Conference in Phoenix, Ariz. in October 2021.

UAF graduate student Hannah Myers was funded to drive from Fairbanks to Seward (twice) and Homer (once) in June-September 2021 to perform fieldwork and to meet with an expert in the field of killer whales.

UAF graduate student Alexandra Reich was funded to travel to Dillingham from June-July 2021 to attend a salmon population dynamics field class.

UAF graduate student Abigail Schiffmiller was funded to travel to the NOAA Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle in June-July 2021 to meet with researchers who collected cetacean survey data in Southeast Alaska, which she is using for her thesis. 

UAF postdoctoral researcher Scott Gabara was funded to attend a virtual workshop in August 2021 on Primer-e PERMANOVA+ statistical analysis software.

UAF graduate student Margaret Rudolf was funded to accompany UAF scientists to Camp Sivunniigvik outside Kotzebue in September 2021 to gain first-hand knowledge of community engagement and knowledge co-production practices. 

UAS faculty Andrzej Piotrowski and UAS undergraduate student Joshua Walsh were funded to virtually attend the Mathematical Association of America MathFest in August 2021.

UAA staff Natalie Rouse was funded to virtually attend the Wildlife Disease Association Joint Virtual Conference in August-September 2021.

UAF graduate student Karen Grosskreutz was funded to virtually attend the Pathways-Human Dimensions of Wildlife Management conference in September 2021.

UAF faculty Thomas Ballinger was funded to attend the 16th Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceanography Virtual Meeting in June 2021 to present on “Variability and Trends of Pacific Arctic atmospheric circulation according to an updated Alaska Blocking Index.”

UAF graduate student Jonathan Chriest was funded to attend the American Meteorological Society’s Fire and Forest Meteorology Symposium in May 2021 to present on “Examining seasonal predictability of lightning in Alaska using ERA5 reanalysis.”

UAF graduate student Gail Dabaluz was funded to travel to Washington, D.C. in July 2021 to conduct research at the National Museum of Natural History into the application of the Native American Graves Protection Repatriation Act.

UAF graduate student Chris Guo was funded to attend a pair of online workshops put on by PR Statistics in April and May 2021.

UAF graduate student Josianne Haag was funded to travel to the University of Hawaii-Manoa in August 2021 to receive field and laboratory training in the the lab of Dr. Henrietta Dulai, an expert in the field of submarine groundwater discharge.

UAF graduate student Sonia Kumar was funded to attend a course in bioacoustics at the University of New Hampshire in June 2021.

UAA postdoc Zhiyang Li was funded to travel to the American Association of Petroleum Geologists annual convention in Denver in May 2021 to present on both “Constraining the effects of dynamic topography on the development of late Cretaceous cordilleran Foreland Basin, Western United States” and “Characteristics and origin of mud-dominated composite particles (aggregates) in late Cenomanian Dunvegan Prodelta “mudstones”: Implications for depositional processes and reservoir quality.”

UAF faculty Judith Ramos was funded to visit collections related Alaska Native people in Juneau, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. to conduct research into Indigenous knowledge of seal hunting camps.

UAA faculty Raghu Srinivasan was funded to attend virtual training in Designing for Corrosion Control offered in May-June 2021 by the National Association for Corrosion Engineers.

UAF graduate student Lindsey Stadler was funded to attend a Field Methods in Marine Ecology and Fisheries course in Juneau in May 2021.

UAF-Kuskokwim Campus faculty Lisa Strecker was funded to travel to Bethel in July-August 2021 to teach an ethnobotany module for a Kuskokwim Summer Science and Culture class organized by the Orutsararmiut Native Council.

UAF graduate student Kristin Timm was funded to attend a pair of summer 2021 courses in the online Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research.

UAF graduate students Rebecca Cates and Lia Domke were funded to travel to the NCEAS Reproducible Research Techniques for Synthesis workshop in Santa Barbara, Calif. in November 2019 to learn about current data science techniques, with an emphasis on “R” software.

UAF graduate student Jonathan Chriest was funded to attend the American Meteorological Society’s Fire and Forest Meteorology Symposium in Palm Springs, California in May 2020 to present his research on “Convective precipitation as a proxy for lightning across Alaska.”

UAF staff Patrick Church was funded to attend the NCURA Conference in Washington, D.C. in August 2020 to expand his knowledge of post-award grant management.

UAF graduate student Gail Dabaluz was funded to attend the Association of American Indian Affairs Repatriation Conference in Fort McDowell, Ariz. In November 2019 to present research into the legal definition of the Native American Graves Protection Repatriation Act and its applicability to Alaska’s Tlingit and Haida tribes.

UAF graduate student Emilia Grzesik was funded to attend the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in December 2019 in San Francisco to present her research into the impacts of an intensified fire regime on Interior Alaska’s black spruce-dominated landscape.

UAA Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve staff Chris Guo was funded to travel to Juneau in October 2019 to receive training from the UAF Coastal Fisheries Ecology Lab in data collection and sample processing of juvenile salmonid diets.

UAF graduate student Luke Henslee was funded to attend the Alaska Chapter of the American Fisheries Society meeting in Fairbanks in March 2020 to present his research into nearshore migration trends of salmon stocks in Norton Sound.

UAF graduate student Julia Hnilicka was funded to travel to multiple rural Alaska communities as part of a project to create a school curriculum based around PurpleAir air quality sensors.

UAS faculty member Eran Hood was funded to attend the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in December 2019 in San Francisco to present data on physical and chemical properties of coastal rivers in Southeast Alaska.

UAA faculty Britteny Howell was funded to attend the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America in Austin, Tex. in November 2019 to present findings on the impact of climate change to vulnerable older adults in Anchorage.

UAA graduate student Jordan Jenckes was funded to attend the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in December 2019 in San Francisco to present his research on the impacts of freshwater and nutrients to the intertidal zone in the Gulf of Alaska.

UAA faculty Eric Klein was funded to attend the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in December 2019 in San Francisco to present his research into how discharge across a gradient of glacially fed rivers varies as a function of climatic variables.

UAF graduate student Nina Lundstrom was funded to attend the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage in January 2020 and the Western Groundfish Conference in Juneau in April-May 2020 to share her research into the impacts of glacial meltwater on nearshore fish communities in Southeast and Southcentral Alaska.

UAF graduate student Katie McCabe was funded to attend the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage in January 2020 to present findings on the impact of glacial melt on estuarine ecosystems.

UAF graduate student Margaret Rudolf was funded to travel to Utqiagvik in January 2020 to serve as a participant-observer on a sea ice-related climate change adaptation project.

UAF faculty Madhumita Sahoo was funded to attend the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in December 2019 in San Francisco to present research into modeling of soil nutrient movement in a warming climate.

UAA faculty Jennifer Schmidt was funded to attend the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in December 2019 in San Francisco to present her research on assessing the effects of firebreaks on ecosystem services and wildfire risk.

UAF graduate student Chris Smith was funded to attend the IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium in Waikoloa, Hawaii in July 2020 to present his research into using hyperspectral imagery and scale-up methods to produce more accurate fire fuel maps.

UAA undergraduate Jeffrey Wagner was funded to attend the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation Course in Front Royal, Virginia in June 2020 to study camera trapping study design and data analysis.

UAF graduate student Marina Washburn was funded to attend the Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage in January 2020 to present her research into the effects of ocean acidification on the Pacific razor clam.

UAF undergraduate Emily Williamson was funded to travel to Juneau twice in early 2020 to collaborate with a PhD student on a project to use homesteader journals as a source of historic streamflow data.

UAF graduate student Jiake Zhou was funded to travel to Fort Collins, Colo. and Jackson, Wyo. In October 2019 to meet with experts in agent-based modeling to strengthen his research into shrub expansion in the Arctic.

Kay Shoemaker, an Anchorage faculty member with the UA Cooperative Extension Service, was funded to attend the Northwest Aquatic and Marine Educators Conference in Port Townsend, Wash., and present on “Reflective Storytelling and Climate Change Education in Alaska.”

Ragen Davey, a graduate student in the UAF Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, was funded to attend the American Chemical Society National Conference in San Diego and present on “Characterizing Wintertime Aerosol Composition and Sulfate Formation, Fairbanks, Alaska.”

Rachel Lekanoff, a graduate student in the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, was funded to attend “Ocean Hack Week” at the University of Washington to learn methods for applying programming languages to large oceanographic data sets.

Kristen Gorman, research faculty at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, was funded to attend “AniMove,” an analysis workshop in animal movement ecology at Yale University, to learn current computational methods for analyzing animal movement data.

Katie McCabe, a graduate student at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, was funded to attend a PRIMER workshop in San Marcos, Texas, focused on multivariate analysis in ecology and understanding relationships between biological and environmental data sets.

Amanda Droghini, a research professional at the Alaska Center for Conservation Science at UAA, was funded to travel to Washington, D.C. for a course at the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation on “Estimating Animal Abundance and Occupancy.”

Eran Hood and Sonia Nagorski, both UAS faculty, were funded to attend the Geological Society of America Penrose Conference on “Climate Controls on Sediment Transport Across Coastal Margins” in Juneau.

Jingqiu Mao, faculty in the UAF Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, was funded to attend the Gordon Research Conference on Atmospheric Chemistry in Newry, Maine to present a project on “Characterizing Brown Carbon in Northern High Latitudes.”