June 22, 2018
UAF will host its Inside Out campus preview on June 22. The daylong recruiting effort that gives high school juniors and seniors and their parents and other family members a chance to ask questions, get answers and experience a day in the life of a student. UAF will also host the preview days in the fall 2018 and spring 2019. Next summer’s Inside Out will transition into a day for admitted students who are planning to enroll for fall 2020.
UAF is a class for inmates at the Fairbanks Correctional Center, Writing Across Contexts (WRTG 111). The project — a collaboration between UAF eLearning, the University Writing Program and the Fairbanks Correctional Center — is intended to provide higher education opportunities to incarcerated students and cultivate an active learning network among the inmates.
The UAF Institute of Northern Engineering Petroleum Development Laboratory has won two major awards from the U.S. Department of Energy: "First Ever Field Pilot on Alaska's North Slope to Validate the Use of Polymer Floods for Heavy Oil Enhanced Oil Recovery" ($6.9 million, in partnership with Hilcorp Alaska), and "Making Coal Relevant for Small-scale Applications: Modular Gasification for Syngas/Engine CHP Applications in Challenging Environments" ($1.6 million). Both projects will work to keep Alaska's energy resources relevant in the world's changing energy economy, and to develop more efficient and sustainable ways of using resources.
Recent University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate Brandt Lomen won the top prize in the university’s 2018 Invent Alaska Competition for a device that can test solar cells on Earth, in space and on other planets by mimicking the light of the sun. The Pseudo-Sun Instrument uses a combination of colored LED lights to mimic the sun’s spectrum. The $7,500 in prize money will fund a student to continue Lomen’s work and conduct research on potential customers. Lomen has accepted a job at BAE Systems Inc., but will be involved in the development of the Pseudo-Sun Instrument.
Marilyn Sigman, UAF faculty member in the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, visited elementary school classrooms and led stream field trips for the Anchorage Watershed Education Program, reaching 125 students. Sigman also trained 10 adult volunteers to give lessons on Westchester Lagoon field trips. This is the fourth year of Alaska Sea Grant’s effort to increase marine and aquatic education and environmental instruction in Alaska’s schools.
Research from Geophysical Institute Professor Carl Tape was featured locally and nationally in numerous media outlets, including the Associated Press, U.S. News and World Report, the Anchorage Daily News and the Seattle Times. Tape’s research, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, investigates energy signals before earthquake activity in Minto Flats, Alaska. Such research could later be used to help develop an early warning or forecasting system.
The Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration held a “drone camp” for 22 middle-school students from June 11-15. The camp, funded by the Federal Aviation Administration, taught participants to assemble and fly drones.
A new web-based tool will allow communities in Alaska and western Canada to see how global climate change could affect their regions. A team in the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks created the tool, which transforms predictions from global climate models into more detailed information about local conditions. It displays temperature and precipitation projections through 2100 under three scenarios for more than 4,000 communities in Alaska and western Canada. The scenarios are based on three different levels of greenhouse gas emissions linked to the burning of fossil fuels.
A UAF study has found evidence that the diet of Cook Inlet beluga whales has changed significantly during the past half-century, a shift that may offer clues about why the population has been struggling. By studying isotope signatures from beluga skulls and growth layers in teeth, researchers found that the marine mammals seem to have shifted to more freshwater-influenced feeding as their range gradually contracted. The study, which UAF student Mark Nelson conducted as his thesis, presents the first evidence for a long-term change in the feeding ecology of Cook Inlet belugas.
Melissa Good, Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory agent, coordinated the eighth annual Dockside Discovery event in Unalaska in May. Local partners taught marine safety, knot tying, archaeology and more to 130 Unalaska grade-school students. Good is a UAF faculty member in the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences and Interior Alaska Campus.