Awards to faculty to support undergraduate students:

• Robert Boeckmann (UAA); Alice Smith: Cultural identity, geographical attachment, and indicators of behavioral health among Alaska Native students
• Rolf Gradinger and Falk Huettmann (UAF); Melanie Bakker and Cortney Pylant: Assembling the pan-Arctic distribution of sea ice fauna in relation to ice algal biomass, a contribution to the Arctic Ocean Diversity (ArcOD) project
• Katrin Iken and Bodil Bluhm (UAF); Dominic Hondolero: Russian-American Long-Term Census of the Arctic: Adding caloric content and spatial resolution of seafloor communities
• David Tallmon (UAS); Micaela Ponce, Amina Ashraf, Brenda Bruggeman and two students TBD: Undergraduate involvement in studies of adaptive and neutral genetic variation in Alaskan species sensitive to global climate change

Award to faculty to support an undergraduate and a graduate student:

• Brian Barnes (UAF) and Ian van Tets (UAA); Jeff Mayfield and Kalb Stevenson: Do arctic vertebrates defend bone mineral stores during hibernation?

• Perry Barboza (UAF); David Gustine: Monitoring winter body condition of barren ground caribou from the Bering Sea to the Hudson Bay
• Matthew Carlson (UAA); Theresa Rzeczycki: Effects of an arctic biological pollutant on rare Alaskan habitats
• Hajo Eicken (UAF); Matthew Druckenmiller: Sea-ice use during IPY 2007-2008: Exploring past and present local activities through research and education and outreach in Barrow and Wales, Alaska
• Bruce Finney (UAF); Jason Addison: Late Quaternary environmental change in the Gulf of Alaska
• Nicole Molders (UAF); Morgan Brown: Investigation of the impact of western Arctic volcanic eruption on weather and climate
• Maribeth Murray (UAF); Jennifer Newton: Retrospective study of sea ice, marine & human system interactions in the North Pacific and Western NA Arctic
• Bill Simpson (UAF); Dan Carlson: Role of sea salts in catalyzing the deposition of mercury in Arctic spring
• Martin Truffer (UAF); Jason Amundson: Understanding the causes and future direction of the present rapid thinning of Jakobshavns Isbrae
• Donald Walker (UAF); Martha Raynolds: Greening of the Arctic: Synthesis and models to examine pan-Arctic vegetation change: climate, sea-ice, and terrain linkages
• Matthew Wooller (UAF); Yiming Wang: Late Quaternary climate dynamics inferred using the stable oxygen isotope composition of aquatic insects (Chironomidae: Diptera) from Idavain Lake, southwest Alaska
• Diana Wolf (UAF); Jessica Beecher: Adaptation to cold in the far north
• David Yesner (UAA); Kristin Scheidt: Zooarchaeology and climate change: Implications of high-resolution faunal records from the outer Kenai Peninsula coast, southcentral Alaska

CIFAR is a major partner in the UAF Global Change Student Research Grant Competition, established by the Center for Global Change in 1992. The competition provides support to UAF students for research on global change presented in an interdisciplinary context, with an arctic or sub-arctic focus. The work may involve the social, biological, and physical sciences and engineering. This competition is designed to give students experience with proposal writing and the peer review system as practiced by science funding agencies.

The annual competition is announced in December, proposals are due in late February and awards are announced in May. Students can request a maximum of $10,000 for two years (not to exceed $5,000 in either year). The International Arctic Research Center (IARC) is also a funding partner in this competition.

• Jason Amundson, Geology & Geophysics,
  “Investigating the climatic parameters influencing calving rates of Jakobshavn Isbrae, West Greenland.”
• Stefanie Bourne, Atmospheric Science Program,
  “Tundra-nesting shorebirds in relation to landscape transformation and climate change.”
• Cody Strathe, Anthropology,
  “Variability in marine ecosystem productivity and effects on seal abundance, morphology, and subsistence hunting throughout the Holocene in the Shelikof Strait, Alaska.”

Twelve new projects were funded through the 2006 competition. Of these, six were funded by CIFAR:

• Jason Addison, Geology & Geophysics,
  “Late Quaternary environmental change in the Gulf of Alaska.”
• Nathan Coutsoubos, Biology & Wildlife,
  “Tundra-nesting shorebirds in relation to landscape transformation and climate change.”
• Dawn Magness, Biology & Wildlife,
  “A survey of management strategies linking global change to decision-making in the National Wildlife Refuge System.”
• Shannon McNeeley, Anthropology,
  “Climate change and variability in interior Alaska: an interdisciplinary approach to data integration and synthesis for establishing regional patterns relevant to stakeholders.”
• Katie Villano, Biology & Wildlife,
  “Assessing wildfire burn susceptibility to invasive plant colonization in black spruce forests of interior Alaska.”
• Blaine Spellman, Forest Sciences,
  “White sweetclover in Alaska: can this invasive affect the floodplain vegetative community?”

In 2005, 12 new projects were funded, four of which were funded by CIFAR.

• Carrin Halffman, Anthropology,
  “Tracking mercury levels in the arctic through time using archaeological bone: initial method validation.”
• Hannah Clilverd, Institute of Arctic Biology,
  “Surface-subsurface hydrologic exchange and nitrogen transformations in the hyporheic zone of the Tanana River in Interior Alaska.”
• Emily Molhoek, Geology & Geophysics,
  “An 8 ky record of vegetation cover, fire history, and moisture availability in north-central Mongolia: impacts of global warming and aridification.”
• Holly McKinney, Anthropology,
  “Temporal variability of archaeologically deposited fish remains in the Gulf of Alaska: an assessment of human and natural impacts.”

The 2004 competition resulted in a total of 14 new projects funded by all partners.

The projects funded directly by CIFAR were:

• Cory Williams, School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences,
  "Tufted puffins as biological indicators of forage fish availability in the western Gulf of Alaska"
• Pieter A.P. de Hart, School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences,
  "Stable isotope analysis of Bowhead whale baleen as a biochemical recorder of shifts in migratory patterns during recent arctic environmental change"
• Susan B. Vanek, Anthropology,
  "The regulation of time, space and classification"

The Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) provides support for training M.S. and Ph.D. students in quantitative fisheries sciences, including population dynamics, management and stock assessment. Students supported to date, through salary, tuition or travel support, include Dana Hanselman (Ph.D. 2004, Gulf of Alaska Pacific Ocean Perch: Stock Assessment, Survey Design, and Sampling); Kalei Shotwell (Ph.D. 2004, Utilizing Multi-source Abundance Estimation and Climate Variability to Forecast Pacific Salmon Populations); Ben Williams (M.S. 2004, Growth Dynamics of Juvenile Yellowfin Sole (Pleuronectes asper) and Northern Rock Sole (Lepidopsetta polyxystra) in the Eastern Bering Sea; Colin Schmitz (M.S., Bering Sea pollock tagging feasibility; left graduate school without completing thesis), John Moran (M.S. 2004, Evaluation of Covariates Affecting Harbor Seal (Phoca vitulina) Haulout Behavior Using Photographic Mark-Recapture), Sara Miller (M.S. 2007, Estimating Movement with a Spatially Explicit Stock Assessment Model of Eastern Bering Sea Walleye Pollock, Theragra chalcogramma; now continuing on for a Ph.D.); Peter-John Hulson (M.S. 2007, Analysis and Comparison of Pacific herring (Clupea pallasi) Age-Structured Assessment Models Employed in Prince William Sound and Sitka Sound, Alaska); Joshua Robins (M.S. 2007, Biophysical Factors Associated with the Marine Growth and Survival of Auke Creek, Alaska Coho Salmon); Cindy Tribuzio (Ph.D. in progress, shark abundance estimation); William Bechtol (Ph.D. in progress, marine fisheries population dynamics and modeling); Haixue Shen (Ph.D. in progress, analyzing hydroacoustic data of walleye pollock schools in the Eastern Bering Sea to examine changes in the dynamics of schools); and Xinxian Zhang (Ph.D. in progress, developing salmon escapement models).

This support is provided through CIFAR to Terrance Quinn II at the University of Alaska School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences (SFOS).

A committee of AFSC and SFOS scientists evaluates graduate student applications. Up to three fellowships per year can be awarded; also "gap" funding is available to support students without other financial support to help them complete their research programs. AFSC has indicated its desire to continue funding this program, subject to the availability of funds. For information, contact the AFSC Scholarship Committee, Fisheries Division, School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, 11120 Glacier Highway, Juneau, AK 99801-8677, e-mail: fisheries@uaf.edu.

In addition to this fellowship program, several graduate student thesis projects are supported by individual grants funded through CIFAR.