Welcome to Alaska NSF EPSCoR
Alaska NSF EPSCoR improves Alaska's scientific capacity by engaging in research projects supported through National Science Foundation and state funds. EPSCoR is in the third year of "Fire and Ice," a five-year project to study climate-driven changes to Alaskan wildfire regimes and coastal ecosystems. For more information check out our brochure and one-page summaries of each component of the program: Boreal Fires; Coastal Margins; and Diversity, Education and Workforce Development. You can also view posters, presentations and publications from Fire and ice researchers.
The national NSF EPSCoR organization also supports Alaska through other funding streams. Check out this poster for more information on the timeline and structure of NSF EPSCoR in Alaska.
EPSCoR news
Conference and Development Awards
Alaska NSF EPSCoR has awarded more than $22,000 to 12 UA faculty and students to support their participation in conferences or training and research opportunities. A full list of winners can be found on our awards page. We anticipate advertising another round of funding opportunities in April.
DEW Boreal Fires Curriculum
We've posted a 5-lesson fire science curriculum aimed at 3rd-5th grades. The lessons were developed by the Fire & Ice DEW team in collaboration with the BLM Campbell Creek Science Centerand the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District 21st Century Learning Program.
Faces of STEM
EPSCoR is showcasing the unique characteristics that Alaskans bring to STEM by sharing
a series of interviews with former University of Alaska students succeeding in STEM careers. The first interviews
are with Liz Dennett, who works for Amazon Web Services; Thomas Hughes, an engineer for the Alaska DOT; and Fairbanks pediatrician Carla Cartagena De Jesus (pictured).
Videos and highlights
Our video production team has been busy! We have four new videos up on our YouTube page:
"Fire & Ice Project Overview" is a brief animated introduction to the Fire & Ice project.
"The McKinley Fire: Rebuilding and Lessons Learned" is an overview of the 2019 McKinley Fire, which burned a 10-mile long swath alongside the Parks Highway. The video has been nominated for a Learnie Award.
"Fire & Ice Coastal Margins Research" is a thorough overview of our research on the Gulf of Alaska.
"Dev Space Development Tools" puts a hammer through the wringer to demonstrate some of the capabilities of the Dev Space facility.
There's a also a Tanana Chiefs Conference video showing footage of some of the TCC/Boreal Fires fieldwork in the Chena River watershed this summer.
In addition, we've put together two new PDF highlights; one is about our research collaborations with the Tanana Chiefs Conference and the other is a list of our 2021 Seed Grant awardees.
Program brochure
We've printed out a brochure for the Fire & Ice project. Hard copies are available on campus; email Tom Moran to arrange a pickup or dropoff.
Science for Alaska lectures online
A pair of UAF Geophysical Institute Science for Alaska lectures featuring Fire & Ice researchers are now available online. F&I grad students Chris Smith and Josie Haag were among the presenters at Feb. 16’s “Venus, volcanos and more: UAF graduate student research stories.” And F&I postdoc Chris Waigl shared the virtual podium with GINA head Jen Delamere for “Firewatch: Fire landscapes from air and space” on March 9.
McKinley Fire Brochure
NSF Track-4 solicitation
The NSF has released a solicitation for "Track-4" awards, which fund non-tenured faculty to travel to private, governmental, or university research centers across the country for extended research visits. Awards are for up to $300,000 over up to two years. This year the NSF is also offering “Track-4: FAST” awards, which fund researchers at certain types of institutions (including UAA and UAS) to collaborate with scientists at NASA research centers.
Interested UAA researchers should contact Aaron Dotson at addotson@alaska.edu for more information, and UAS researchers contact Paula Martin at pjmartin2@alaska.edu and cc Tom Thornton at tthornto@alaska.edu. The NSF submission deadline is April 26. (UAF researchers are subject to an internal campus deadline which has already passed.)
The NSF will hold Zoom "office hours" to answer questions about the awards at 11 AM on March 31 and April 21; email questions to cwhitley@nsf.gov in advance.
Monthly newsletter
We've been sending out a monthly email called "Fire & Ice Essentials" to individuals involved in the Fire & Ice project. Its main focus is on funding opportunities, and it also includes notes about upcoming conferences and other events, as well as project news and products.
We still plan to continue with once-a-semester newsletters, which will be aimed more at an external audience.
Boreal Fires faculty hire
We're pleased to announce the hire of Simon Zwieback as an Assistant Professor of Remote Sensing with the UAF Geophysical Institute. Zwieback
holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Zurich (ETH Zurich), and an M.S. in Geodesy and Geophysics and a B.S. in Geodesy and
Geoinformatics from the Vienna Institute of Technology in Austria. He’s held postdoctoral
and professional positions at ETH Zurich and a postdoc at the University of Guelph
in Canada, and most recently worked as a Research Associate at the Geophysical Institute.
His research interests include remote sensing and permafrost land surface processes,
and he’ll work with the Boreal Fires component.
Research Workspace videos
We've posted 17 videos on our YouTube channel that explain how to use various facets of the Research Workspace, the repository for Fire and Ice data.