Collaborations

Collaborations with organizations both inside and outside of academia have been key to shaping Fire & Ice research and in sharing project results with a wide audience. Major collaborators across the project include the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States; Alaska INBRE, BLaST, and Alaska NASA EPSCoR; and the UAF CFOS Tamamta program.

Below find descriptions of key collaborations by each of the project components.

Boreal Fires Collaborations

Santosh
Boreal Fires researcher Santosh Panda talks with Tom Paragi of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game at an Alaska Fire Science Consortium meeting in 2019.

The most significant Boreal Fires partner is the Alaska Fire Science Consortium, a multiagency entity that helps to shape research direction, provide agency contacts, and apply findings. Three members of the consortium are members of the Boreal Fires leadership team, and help facilitate communications with relevant fire and resource managers to assist in integrating Boreal Fires products and outcomes into wildland fire management. Also, biennial consortium workshops have been an invaluable venue for researchers to exchange findings with the fire management community.

The Tanana Chiefs Conference is co-producing research with researcher Todd Brinkman. In particular, TCC personnel have conducted UAV surveys of firebreaks in rural villages, and have also used UAV's to assist in studies of fire impacts on the Upper Chena River. Learn more in this research highlight.

Bonanza Creek Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) incudes two research sites, Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest and  Caribou-Poker Creeks Research Watershed, that are being used to ground-truth hyperspectral remote sensing.

Other major collaborations include:

Coastal Margins Collaborations

CACS
Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies volunteer Chelsea Kovalcsik relocating an octopus in Tutka Bay, 2019.

The Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (KBNERR) shares data from their ongoing effort to characterize the oceanography of Cook Inlet. KBNERR also assists with fieldwork, loans gear, and serves as a valuable partner for public dissemination of Coastal Margins work in collaboration with the DEW component. 

Other major collaborations include:

DEW Collaborations

The Fairbanks North Star Borough School District has been a major partner, including providing initial online and in-person instruction of the DEW curriculum through the district's 21st Century Learning afterschool program. 

Other major collaborations include:

Other Collaborations

Aquagga
The founders of Aquagga, Inc., which received a Phase 0 award in 2020.

The Alaska Technology Research and Development (TREND) Center is an important partner in Fire & Ice economic development efforts. TREND awards “Phase 0” grants to Alaskan entrepreneurs to help them get new projects off the ground and apply for larger amounts of federal  Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funding. TREND has awarded 13 grants to date and also offers online presentations on the topic of applying for SBIR funding.

Other Economic Development collaborations include:

Communications collaborations include: