Media Advisory

TO                         News and Assignment Editors

FROM                     UAF University Relations

SUBJECT                NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION DIRECTOR MEETS WITH RUSSIAN AND JAPANESE COUNTERPARTS AT UAF

LOCATION              Regents Room, Second Floor Butrovich Building, UAF Campus

DATE & TIME          News Conference, Wednesday, August 6, 1 p.m.

National Science Foundation Director Neal Lane, whose agency oversees more than $2 billion worth of federal science and engineering research grants annually, will be in Fairbanks Aug. 6 to talk with planners of UAF's new International Arctic Research Center.

Lane will hold a 1 p.m. news conference on the UAF campus Wednesday, Aug. 6. in the Burtovich Building Regents Room to discuss with reporters NSF arctic research initiatives and the future of international cooperation among scientists studying sensitive polar regions, an area most researchers agree is the first to experience evidence of global climate change.

Lane is in Fairbanks en route to Barrow where on Aug. 7 he'll participate in the 50th anniversary of the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory. Considered the largest arctic research facility in the world, UAF for many years ran NARL for the U.S. Navy. Operation of the facility was transferred to the North Slope Borough's Ukpeagivk Inupiat Corp. in 1984.

While in Fairbanks, Lane will meet with Russian Federation Minister for Science and Technology Vladimir E. Fortov, and science adviser to the president of the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center Shin-Ichi Ishii. The three will also meet with scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and tour UAF research facilities.

The $30 million International Arctic Research Center, currently under construction and expected to be completed in January 1999, will serve as a focal point for collaborative, international arctic research, including global change, aurora studies, earthquakes and oceanography. The Japanese government is funding nearly 60 percent of the project.

CONTACT: NSF Public Information Officer Lynn Simarski (703) 306-1070, or UAF Public Information Officer Debra Damron (907) 474-7122.

DPD/7-31-97/98-05ma