Dr. Hirsch received his BA in Social Thought and Political Economy from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and his MA and Ph.D. in Politics and History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research interests include political theory, ethics, public memory, transitional justice, indigenous cultural politics, and ancient thought and literature. His courses range across the history of political thought, both in the West and beyond.  They include Ethics & Society, Political Freedom, Classical Political Thought, Art & Politics, and After Evil.

In the Honors College, Dr. Hirsch teaches several courses, including Methods of Inquiry, which explores interdisciplinary theories of knowledge, belief, and disbelief.  

Eleanor Guthrie is thrilled to join the Honors College as its first Student Success Coordinator. Her role will support student goals and individual growth through advising, event coordination, and other strategic initiatives targeted at student success and retention. She has a passion for learning individual student stories and aiding young adults in educational, social, and emotional growth and achievement. Eleanor looks forward to using this opportunity to assist UAF Honors students in intentionally working towards their educational and life objectives.

Eleanor recently returned to Fairbanks after several years pursuing higher education in Washington State. She calls Fairbanks home, holding many fond memories growing up in Interior Alaska. As a third-generation University of Alaska Fairbanks employee, Eleanor is excited to begin her career at the institution that helped shape the person she is today.

She is a University of Washington double-alumni, earning her BS in Political Economics in 2018 and an MA in Public Administration in 2022. Prior to and between degrees, Eleanor worked as a legislative aide for the Alaska State Senate. There she had the honor of working for Interior Alaskans, developing legislation targeted at statewide education initiatives. Throughout her graduate education, Eleanor worked in administration for Whatcom Community College in Bellingham, Washington. She served as an Executive Assistant to both WCC’s President’s Office and the Vice President of Student Services.

Outside of work, Eleanor is an active volunteer in the Fairbanks nonprofit world. She is passionate about community economic development, conservation, and education initiatives in Interior Alaska and is excited to be back in the community she calls home.

Dr. Alexander counts herself very fortunate to be joining the Climate Scholars program as its first coordinator. Her role will accelerate the Honors College initiative to equip outstanding undergraduate students from all disciplines with experience, knowledge and skills to lead and to act on the challenges presented by climate change that manifest on so many dimensions. As well as supporting the overall program, she will contribute through her own research agendas in maritime geographies and the role of place in the production of scientific knowledge.

Alexander earned dual undergraduate degrees from UAF in Political Science and Journalism followed by an MSc in Industrial Relations from the London School of Economics. She worked first in the non-profit sector followed by a fifteen-year stint at Microsoft in business software development while raising two children, Celia, and Everett Jackson. She left the company in 2014 and returned to the U.K. to earn both an MSc (Distinction) in Geopolitics and Security and a Ph.D. in Political Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London.  

She is Anchorage-born and grew up in Fairbanks. Her mother (Dr. Vera Alexander) was the first woman to graduate from UAF with a Ph.D. (in Marine Science) and stayed at UAF where she served as Dean of College of Fisheries and Ocean Science. After many years away, the younger Dr. Alexander returned to Fairbanks to edit her thesis in relative peace (a biography of the Bering Sea Patrol Ship Northland), spend valuable time with her mother, become reacquainted with old friends and experience Alaska in ways both familiar and new. One can go home again, but it will be a different place! Her two Spinone Italiano bird dogs Guido Gelato Cioccolato and Tobi Moray accompany her on many adventures, she cares for two Icelandic horses, plays the banjo sufficiently to clear a room, and dabbles in various creative pursuits. 

She says it is ultimately always a pleasure, even when it is momentarily not, to work with students and colleagues to advance our knowledge and skills and gain intellectual and pragmatic progress on a variety of research subjects. She loves teaching, and in particular encouraging the development of independent critical thinking and an awareness of the role of geography in historical and contemporary inquiry, a virtually unlimited and perpetually fascinating work surface.

Dr. Katie Villano Spellman was born and raised in Alaska. She has dedicated her career to the interface of social justice and science and has found the overlap for her passion in both areas through climate change education and research. Katie received her bachelor's in Biology from Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. She worked in homeless services and co-founded a street newspaper with members of the homeless community in Tacoma, Washington before returning home to Fairbanks to pursue a Masters and Ph.D. in Biological Sciences at UAF. In between the two graduate degrees, she worked as the ecological education program director at the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies, in Homer, Alaska. Her research is split evenly between plant ecology and education research, with public engagement in and access to the scientific process as a unifying theme in both areas. Her ecological research focuses on how a warming climate influences boreal and tundra plant communities through non-native species introductions, changes in phenology, and wildfire. Her education research investigates the effectiveness of different climate change learning strategies and science engagement models.  She collaborates regularly with students, teachers, and community members across Alaska (currently in more than 35 communities) and in 122 countries around the globe to address climate change issues and increase access to science at local and global scales.

Kristin Timm studies and teaches communication to help people work together to solve complex environmental problems. Drawing from theories in organizational communication, science and technology studies, and science and environmental communication, her research primarily focuses on interactions amongst people, teams, organizations, and the processes that enable or constrain the movement of information across different contexts and settings. Most of her work has been in the context of climate change science, ans as a social scientist, she uses qualitative, quantitative, and computational methods in her work.