Friday Focus: The importance of international conferences

February 20, 2020

Tori Tragis

Larry Hinzman speaks during the One Health conference on the Fairbanks campus in March 2019. UAF photo by JR Ancheta.
Larry Hinzman speaks during the One Health conference on the Fairbanks campus in March 2019. UAF photo by JR Ancheta.


— by Larry Hinzman, vice chancellor for research

I am quite excited about the upcoming One Health, One Future 2020 conference to be convened on campus March 11-14. I am looking forward to this event for many reasons, one of which is to welcome a wide array of health-related researchers and practitioners from across our state, throughout the nation and around the world.

It is very important to demonstrate to our national funding agencies and our collaborating research partners that we still maintain great facilities and have strong biomedical expertise here at UAF. The conference is very important to share recent discoveries and accomplishments and to discuss with other researchers how to address new and emerging challenges. The conversations around posters or in hallways over coffee are often where collaborations are born. I believe that the funding sources within the many offices of the National Institutes of Health provide the greatest opportunities for expanding UAF research.

Gatherings such as this are very important to helping UAF maintain its status as a global research leader. We need to bring collaborators, funders, policymakers and potential students to Fairbanks to demonstrate our facilities and promote our capabilities. While large conferences such as these are expensive and an incredible amount of work, the benefits returned to Alaska are multifold. Perhaps most importantly, this meeting will address important new strategies to improve the health of northern people. It attracts potential faculty and students to Fairbanks. It also opens doors for additional biomedical research funding by generating new ideas for future research endeavors to resolve the health challenges of Alaskans.  

In addition, conferences convened during the university spring break ensure our facilities are utilized to their optimum capacity. We expect about 250 attendees, which brings a nice boost to the Fairbanks tourist economy at a time when our hotels and restaurants are not typically busy. Our conference attendees often bring family members and include some vacation after the meeting, bolstering the winter economy of the whole state. Additionally, this conference further connects our campus with our community.

We are blessed to have a positive, welcoming community that makes such conferences such a rewarding endeavor. Researchers come to enhance their own knowledge and abilities, but they return home with fond memories of Alaska and her people. These large conferences always attract the national media, whose articles and broadcasts portray Fairbanks as a wonderful place to visit, live, work and study. Such messages build the positive image of Alaska and further promote tourism to our great state. They also share information on accomplishments in biomedical research, which will lead to improvements in the health of our community, our economy and our nation.

I thank the organizers and volunteers who will make this meeting a success. And I thank our faculty, staff and students and residents of Fairbanks for welcoming our guests from around the world. Let’s make this conference as productive and enjoyable as it can be.

Friday Focus is a column written by a different member of UAF’s leadership team every week.