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 second 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 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 small poster for more information on the timeline and structure of NSF EPSCoR in Alaska.
EPSCoR news
Solstice Game Jam
- Register for the Solstice Game Jam here.
- Participants will meet on Zoom at the beginning and end of the Game Jam; during the rest of the event teams will manage their own interactions.
- Games will be submitted to a website (itch.io) and judges will choose winners. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-place winners will have prizes mailed to them and all participants will receive a participation award.
- For more information contact chphillips@alaska.edu. More details will be emailed to registrants before the event. We also have PDFs of our terrific poster.
DEW Seed Grants Awarded
We’re pleased to announce two more recipients of Fire and Ice DEW Seed Grants.
A group led by IARC Research Assistant Professor Katie Spellman will be funded for “Fostering Science: Expanding Access to Science Camp to Youth in Care of the State.” The team will hold a weeklong summer science camp (picture, above) at the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest exclusively for youths in the Fairbanks-area foster care system.
UAA postdoc Anita Moore-Nall and a research associate will be funded for “Digital Storytelling: Bridging a Gap in Place-Based Science.” Moore-Nall plans to work with students at Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka to create digital products focused on ecosystem change that are rooted in oral storytelling traditions.
Spellman and Moore-Nall join three earlier grantees: UAA-KPC faculty Alison Gardell, UAF faculty Carie Green, and Juneau-based UAF faculty Shannon DeMaster.
Fire and Ice Data Portal is online
The Fire and Ice project's new legacy data portal is now live. The portal provides access to datasets and data projects collected by Fire and Ice researchers, as well as datasets from related projects and from previous EPSCoR endeavors.
Tour guide workshop on video
On May 27, EPSCoR teamed up with ExploreFairbanks to offer a science workshop for Interior Alaskan tour guides. The two-hour workshop, which is now available for view on Youtube, includes presentations on weather and climate, permafrost, wildlife, fires, and the aurora borealis.
New newsletter out
The May 2020 EPSCoR newsletter includes articles about our Boreal Fires researchers' work to help the Alaska Fire Service's remote sensing efforts; an update on our fieldwork in the wake of COVID-19; and opportunities and announcements, including an invitation to participate in our upcoming Game Jam. It's also viewable on Issuu.
Small business funding seminars
Our friends at the Technology Research and Development Center of Alaska (Alaska TREND) are in the process of holding and recording a number of workshops about applying for federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funds. They're all available to watch on the TREND GoToStage website.
EPSCoR videos and highlights
We've been busy producing videos and PDF highlights about the Fire and Ice project.
Recent videos include an overview of the "Girls on Water" program; an absorbing animated introduction to hyperspectral remote sensing (source of the image above); a 360-degree video tour of the Kasitsna Bay Lab; a sampler of some of our drone footage of this summer's fieldwork; and timelapse video of Grewingk Glacier Lake and the Jakalof River produced by our Coastal Margins "Stream Team."
We've also produced our first set of PDF highlights from the Fire and ice project.
Logo GIFs
Our Data Visualization Specialist Cassidy Phillips turned the Fire and Ice and Alaska EPSCoR logos into a pair of great GIFs. Feel free to download. He also made a GIF of the logos for Vis and Dev Space.
Boreal Fires spring presentations online
On April 9, members of the Boreal Fires team presented updates on their work as online webinars for the Alaska Fire Science Consortium. One presentation concerned progress toward constructing seasonal wildfire outlooks, and the other dealt with progress in remote sensing, including analysis of active fires and sites of previous fires, and using hyperspectral data to improve fuels mapping. Both are also available on video.