From students to faculty to stakeholders, hundreds of people are involved in NSF Alaska EPSCoR’s research and outreach efforts. Follow the links below to profiles of a few of the many extraordinary people who are the heart and soul of EPSCoR on the Last Frontier.

• Lil Alessa (Alaska EPSCoR co-PI) - listen to her presentation at the Alaska World Affairs Council on Water and the Arctic: The Endgame
• Robin Bronen
• Stacey Fritz
• Michael Golub
• Erica Hill
• Emilie Springer
• Katey Walter
• Yuri Shur and colleagues
• The GLOBE Project
• The Western Arctic Interdisciplinary Science Conference (WAISC)

Former Alaska EPSCoR graduate fellow Jordan Lewis has been selected by the National Institutes of Health as one of six people to serve on the Director's Council of Public Representatives, the advisory committee to the NIH director. Lewis, who was an EPSCoR fellow from 2008-09, now works as an Assistant Professor in UAF's Alaska Native Studies Department.

Alaska EPSCoR graduate fellow Rebecca Hewitt was awarded an honorable mention for her poster entry at the 2009 Long-Term Ecological Research All Scientists Meeting, held in September in Estes Park, Colorado. Hewitt’s poster, “Going Underground: The role of mycorrhizal fungi in promoting or inhibiting post-fire seedling establishment across treeline in Alaska,” came in second overall in the competition out of 175 student entries submitted from across the country.

Alaska EPSCoR graduate fellow Ryan Cooper is the 2009 winner of the Robert I. Larus award, given to the outstanding presenter at the annual AAAS Arctic Science Conference. Cooper, who is studying for his M.S. at UAF, gave a presentation on “Morphometric and Genetic Delimitation of the St. Matthew and Singing Vole” at the conference, which was held in mid-September in Juneau.

The award means AAAS will pay Cooper’s expenses to the national AAAS meeting in San Diego in February 2010, where he will have an opportunity to present his research in the general poster session.  

Alaska EPSCoR scientists Kenji Yoshikawa and Elena Sparrow are spending late September and early October on an expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest peak, to see whether the mountain is home to any areas of permafrost. To learn more about the expedition check out its web page at www.xpeditiononline.com.

Yoshikawa has also been busy with his long-term, EPSCoR-supported project of installing permafrost monitoring stations throughout Alaska and other northern regions. He’s also continued to produce his Tunnel Man videos, which teach kids permafrost science through visual elements and catchy music. For more information about either project, including links to the videos and to a Google Earth map of the permafrost sites, visit www.uaf.edu/permafrost.

The National Science Foundation has awarded $3 million to the Bering Sea Sub Network, a regional initiative through which coastal communities in Western Alaska and Northeast Russia share systematic observations of the changing environment around the Bering Sea. The five-year project is being implemented by the EPSCoR-affiliated Resilience and Adaptive Management Group at the University of Alaska Anchorage and by the Aleut International Association.

The Sub Network began as an International Polar Year project and finished a two-year pilot phase in August 2009, which included three villages in Alaska and three in Russia. Hundreds of fishermen and hunters in the villages were surveyed about fish and subsistence game and the changes they have observed in recent harvests. The multi-year project, which will encompass four additional Alaskan villages, will allow scientists to gather more data on ongoing changes and their consequences to communities and to help improve the ability of the communities to respond to those changes.

For more information visit www.bssn.net

Alaska EPSCoR-funded student Robin Bronen has been selected to participate in the Marie Curie Ph.D Winter School on Adaptive Governance. Bronen will fly to the Netherlands in November to participate in the two-week school program, which will include classes, presentations and lectures as well as participation in the 2009 Amsterdam Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change.

Bronen is an Anchorage-based Ph.D student in UAF’s Resilience and Adaptation Program, studying forced human relocations and migrations due to climate change. 

La Tia Jackson, a Mt. Edgecumbe High School student who participated in an EPSCoR-supported Alaska Rural Research Partnership, is the recipient of a prestigious Gates Millenium Scholarship Award. The scholarships, given to 1,000 minority students each year, pay for tuition and a living stipend for the entirety of the students’ college educations, all the way up to a Ph.D.

Alaska EPSCoR helps fund the rural research partnerships, which pair up rural high school students with UA scientists for research projects.

High school students from the village of Shageluk who participated in the IPY GLOBE program have been awarded the Alaska Spirit of Youth Award. The award was given by Spirit of Youth, an organization dedicated to “creating, promoting and recognizing youth involvement in communities across Alaska.” The students received the award in the “science and environment” category, in part for their participation in EPSCoR-supported GLOBE Seasons and Biomes project.

Former Alaska EPSCoR graduate fellow Jordan Lewis has been awarded the 2009 Aging and Rural Health Research Award by the American Public Health Association. Lewis was awarded on the basis of his paper, “ Successful aging through the eyes of Alaska Natives.” He will give a two-hour talk based on the paper at the APHA annual conference in Philadelphia in November.

The employees of the main office of Alaska EPSCoR, located at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, have been awarded the "Don't Be Fuelish" prize by the Northern Alaska Environmental Center and the Fairbanks North Star Borough for their efforts in taking alternative transportation to work over the summer of 2008.

UAF student Charles “Cutter” Degerlund’s paper “Engineering Education, Ethics and Legality” placed second out of 17 entries in the Technical Paper competition at the American Society of Civil Engineers Pacific Northwest Student Conference, held April 2-4 in Helena, Montana. It was the first time a student from the UAF student chapter of ASCE won an award in the competition. Degerlund traveled to the conference on an Alaska EPSCoR travel grant.

EPSCoR management team member Mary Pete has been honored as Person of the Year by the Tundra Women's Coalition, a Bethel nonprofit group committed to promoting a healthy social environment for the women, children and men of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. According to the Coalition, the award is given annually to someone who “exemplifies the values of commitment to self-respect, family, community, equality, peace, self-determination and the worth of every person.” Pete is director of the UAF Kuskokwim campus in Bethel and serves as the Rural Campus Representative on EPSCoR’s management team.

Katey Walter, an EPSCoR-funded researcher studying lake-bed methane bubbling, has been named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer for 2009.

The prestigious Emerging Explorer program each year recognizes 10 young scientists, photographers and storytellers who are making a difference early in their careers. Walter will receive $10,000 for further research and will likely work with National Geographic to turn some of her research into textbook material and educational videos.

Walter is a researcher in the Water and Environmental Research Center at UAF. Her research, which has been partially funded by a 2008 $30,000 Alaska EPSCoR Early-Career grant, is focused on the bubbling of trapped methane, a potent greenhouse gas, out of Arctic lakes, including its origins, its contribution to atmospheric greenhouse gases, and its potential for use as an energy source.

For more information visit the Emerging Explorers site or check out Walter’s Alaska EPSCoR research highlight.

Alaska EPSCoR Publications Assistant Tom Moran was the only UAF student this semester awarded an Exceptional Student Employee Award. Presented by Chancellor Rogers, this award recognizes student employees who excel at their jobs while maintaining strong academic records.

Tom, an MFA student in Creative Writing, is in charge of producing many of Alaska EPSCoR's publications and external communications, including our brochure and newsletter. He has worked in the Alaska EPSCoR office at UAF since September 2007.

Elena Sparrow, who is in charge of Alaska EPSCoR’s K-12 education efforts, is the recipient of the 2008 Emma Walton Distinguished Service Award, presented by the Alaska Science Teachers Association. The award recognizes educators who make extraordinary contributions to the advancement of science education. According to ASTA, Sparrow merited the award because of her record as “one of the strongest advocates for K-12 inquiry-based science education in the state of Alaska.”

Sparrow is a research professor at UAF in the School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences and Education/Outreach Director for EPSCoR, for the International Arctic Research Center, and for the UAF Long Term Ecological Research Program. Among other outreach efforts, Sparrow founded and directs the Alaska GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) program, directs an NSF International Polar Year (IPY) Seasons and Biomes Program and directs the University of the Arctic IPY Higher Education Outreach Office located at UAF.

EPSCoR Director Peter Schweitzer and Executive Officer Anne Sudkamp have both been re-elected as members of the governing council of the International Arctic Social Sciences Association.

Schweitzer previously served as IASSA president from 2001-04 and as a council member from 2004-08, while Sudkamp served as executive officer of the council from 2001-04 and as a council member from 2004-08. They were re-elected to the 9-member council during the 6th International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences, held in August 2008 in Nuuk, Greenland.

The mission of the organization is to promote research by social scientists in the world’s arctic and subarctic regions. Other members of the council hail from Greenland, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Scotland.

Alaska EPSCoR Director Peter Schweitzer is a new chairman-elect of the Executive Committee of the Council of EPSCoR Project Directors (CPD.)

Schweitzer was elected to the position at a CPD meeting held August 12, 2008 in Washington D.C. As per the by-laws of the council, he will serve as Second Vice-Chair of the Council in 2008-09, Vice-Chair in 2009-10 and Chair in 2010-11. Schweitzer had not previously served on the council.

The position means that Schweitzer, along with other members of the committee, will deal directly with the NSF EPSCoR office on behalf of all NSF EPSCoR project directors in shaping the further development of the national EPSCoR program. The committee is also charged with improving communication, discussion and collaboration between individual EPSCoR jurisdictions.

Alaska EPSCoR Communication-Outreach Coordinator Pips Veazey has been elected to the UAF Staff Council.

The 30-plus member Council represents UAF support staff in dealings with the University administration, providing employees an avenue to help formulate new policies, change existing policies or working conditions, and weigh in on other matters. Over the years, Staff Council has been responsible for a number of employee benefit improvements, including an additional University holiday, a leave-share program and a flexible work schedule.

For more information visit the Staff Council website .