October 13, 2017
A group led by the UAF Upward Bound program has received a $2.1 million National Science Foundation grant to develop interest in science among low-income and first-generation-to-college high school students. The program will use unmanned aerial systems, 3-D printers and codable minicomputers to attract Upward Bound students to science, technology, engineering and math fields. The three-year effort, funded by the NSF’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, will include Upward Bound programs in 18 states and territories.
John Smelter, UAF’s degree completion academic advisor, and eLearning have created a partnership that helps students who have earned more than 100 credits (but are not close to finishing a degree) potentially earn an interdisciplinary degree with online courses. More than 50 people who started their degrees at UAF or elsewhere have expressed interest in the program.
Research presented on a wide range of topics at the University of Alaska Museum of the North during the 2016 Arctic Science Summit Week in Fairbanks has been published in a special volume on Arctic museum collections in the journal Arctic Science. Herbarium Curator Steffi Ickert-Bond edited the volume, "Arctic Museum Collections: Documenting and Understanding Changes in Biological and Cultural Diversity Through Time and Space.”
Christa Mulder, professor of plant ecology at the Institute of Arctic Biology, received the Imagination Library Champions for Children Award. The award recognizes extraordinary and exemplary service to children in the Fairbanks North Star Borough. Mulder created Fostering Science, a program dedicated to introducing children to the joys of science. The program is funded as part of a grant from the NSF to the Bonanza Creek Long Term Ecological Research Site.
UAF is now enrolling students in five fully online special education graduate programs. Four of these programs are designed specifically to help Alaska's teachers achieve their educational goals while continuing to work in their schools and communities. The fifth program, a Master of Education in special education, will accept enrollments from outside of Alaska.
Katherine Arndt, the Rasmuson Library’s Alaska and polar regions bibliographer and curator of rare books and maps, will lecture Nov. 16 at the Anchorage Museum as part of the Cook Inlet Historical Society’s series “150 Years: Defining Moments in the Great Land.” Arndt, a prominent scholar of the Russian period in Alaska’s history, will discuss social services in Russian Alaska on the eve of its transfer to U.S. ownership 150 years ago.
Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory agent Torie Baker and Jerry Dzugan of the Alaska Marine Safety Education Association trained 13 fishermen and mariners in their first step earning Coast Guard-approved safety certification. The five-day training to become commercial fishing vessel safety drill conductors and AMSEA-certified water safety instructors occurs twice a year.
UAF celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day for the first time with a community celebration at the Fairbanks campus on Oct. 9. Events included a blessing at Troth Yeddha’ Park, a panel discussion, Alaska Native dance performances, a screening of the film “Kiuguyat: The Northern Lights,” and informational and artisan booths.
KUAC will welcome hundreds of community members, alumni, faculty, staff and students during its Fall Fundraiser Oct. 14-22. For 12-14 hours a day, volunteers will invite listeners and viewers to help support public broadcasting. Listeners will be able to hear the fun and frivolity on KUAC FM 89.9 as volunteers go about their serious business.
Georgina Gibson, research assistant professor at the International Arctic Research, received a Track-4 fellowship from the NSF’s EPSCoR program. The award will fund a collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to improve modeling of dissolved organic matter at the Arctic land-ocean interface.
Professor of animal science Milan Shipka and a multistate agricultural research group he leads have received a Western Region Excellence in Research Award. Only one multistate research group is honored regionally each year. The research team studies the reproductive physiology of domestic ruminants. Members come from 34 states, from Florida to Alaska. A committee that includes Western region experiment station and Extension directors chose the top project.