Social and behavioral science experts

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  • Troy Bouffard

    Troy Bouffard

    October 28, 2022

    Expertise in Norwegian and Russian regulatory regimes, and Arctic governance experiential learning. Arctic security, disaster policy, homeland security, Arctic governance, Arctic policy
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  • Brandon Boylan

    Brandon Boylan

    October 28, 2022

    Boylan’s research includes international relations, international security, political violence, terrorism, ethnic conflict, and separatist movements. His teaching focuses on international relations, research methods, and Arctic politics.
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  • Courtney Carothers

    Courtney Carothers

    October 28, 2022

    Environmental anthropology, human dimensions of fishery systems, local and traditional ecological knowledge. Social and cultural aspects of fishery systems.
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  • Jennifer Carroll

    October 28, 2022

    Anthropology, indigenous research, oral history, indigenous education, place-based education and program development, feminist anthropology, women and culture.
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  • Mary Ehrlander

    Mary Ehrlander

    October 28, 2022

    Ehrlander’s research interests include Alaska history; alcohol cultures, problems and policies; and sexual and domestic violence in the north.
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  • Peter J. Fix

    Peter J. Fix

    October 28, 2022

    Pete Fix utilizes quantitative surveys to address issues related to public land management. Research interests include human dimensions of natural resource management, motivations for recreation participation, recreation planning frameworks, recreation research methods, natural resource-based tourism and recreation economics.
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  • Portrait of Alexander Hirsch

    Alexander Hirsch

    October 28, 2022

    Expertise in political theory, ethics, history of ideas, public memory and mourning, transitional justice, indigenous cultural politics, ancient thought and literature.
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  • Davin Holen

    Davin Holen

    October 28, 2022

    Davin Holen is the Alaska Sea Grant Coastal Community Resilience Specialist. Davin works enable communities to adapt to rapidly changing ocean and climatic conditions and changing terrestrial landscape from Southeast Alaska to the Arctic. Holen’s education is in anthropology and his expertise is in working with communities to enhance adaptation capacity and resilience. Prior to working for UAF, Davin spent 15 years conducting social science research and managing the subsistence program in southern Alaska for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
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  • Nathan Kettle

    Nathan Kettle

    October 28, 2022

    Nathan Kettle is an expert in the human dimensions of global environmental change, risk and uncertainty, trust, the role of networks in climate change adaptation, and social network analysis.
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  • Michael Koskey

    October 28, 2022

    Ethnohistory, traditional knowledge, circumpolar political economy, resource management, indigenous social change, research methodology, indigenous mythology, cross-cultural research, community-based research.
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  • Amy Lauren Lovecraft

    Amy Lauren Lovecraft

    October 28, 2022

    Amy Lauren Lovecraft is an expert in public policy, political economy, and political behavior. Her research interests includes policy issues related to the uncertainty of a changing Arctic.
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  • Diane McEachern

    Diane McEachern

    October 28, 2022

    Expertise in rural social work, Indigenous epistemology and suicide prevention.
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  • Chanda Meek

    Chanda Meek

    October 28, 2022

    Meek is an expert in analyzing policy approaches to complex environmental problems, Arctic policy and governance, collaborative resource management and Indigenous-state relations.
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  • Sveta Yamin-Pasternak

    Sveta Yamin-Pasternak

    October 28, 2022

    Yamin-Pasternak is a cultural anthropologist who studies how foodways in Northern communities interact with the local climate, built environment, family and community relations, ecology, and aesthetics. She collaborates with researchers across the fields of social and natural sciences, indigenous scholarship, humanities and engineering. She is also a world-leading researcher in the field of ethnomycology.
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  • Joshua Reuther

    October 28, 2022

    Archaeology, anthropology, geoarchaeology, archaeological science. Primary research interests focus on the interactions of humans and environments and understanding changes in technology, settlement and subsistence systems in the midst of dynamic alterations in ecosystems and landscapes.
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  • Jennifer Schell

    Jennifer Schell

    October 28, 2022

    Research specialties include North American literature, Arctic writing, whaling history, print and visual culture, animal studies and environmental humanities. Current research explores manifestations of ecogothic discourse in North American extinction writing — including that which addresses Arctic animals such as mammoths and whales — published between 1820 and the present.
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  • Tobias Schwoerer

    Tobias Schwoerer

    October 28, 2022

    Tobias Schwoerer is an applied economist with expertise in Alaska’s resource management issues, particularly the response to invasive species and the effects of environmental change on the economy.
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  • Pat Sekaquaptewa

    October 28, 2022

    Federal Indian law where it intersects with tribal sovereignty, trust obligations and the rights of Alaska Natives and American Indians. Tribal domestic law (governance, family, property, public safety, and wellness) which subsume land and subsistence issues.
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  • Charlene Stern

    Charlene Stern

    October 28, 2022

    Community development in Alaska and Gwich’in history. Community planning, asset-based community development, strategic planning, analytical planning methods.
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  • Kristin Timm

    Kristin Timm

    October 28, 2022

    Expertise in science and environmental communication. Studies the role of communication — including the messengers, messages, and processes — used to address complex environmental issues, such as global climate change.
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  • Sarah Trainor

    Sarah Trainor

    October 28, 2022

    Sarah Trainor is an expert in climate change assessment and adaptation in Alaska with specific emphasis on climate and wildfire science communication, application, and stakeholder engagement. Her research interests include human dimensions of global change, especially in the Arctic and northern latitudes, and interdisciplinary assessment of ecosystem services related to global change and mixed subsistence economies in rural Alaska.
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