Environment

Fulbright Arctic Initiative Press Release  |  April 3, 2018

Sixteen outstanding scholars from Arctic Council nations will engage in collaborative, multi-disciplinary research over the next 18 months through the U.S. Department of State’s Fulbright Arctic Initiative to advance Arctic nations’ shared interest in building resilient communities and sustainable economies. Researchers will explore topics such as renewable energy, fisheries management, health and wellness, and telecommunications infrastructure in the Arctic. Sponsored by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, this initiative supports interdisciplinary research for scholars from Arctic Council member countries.

Dr. Michael Sfraga, Director of the Polar Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and Dr. Ross A. Virginia, Director of the Institute of Arctic Studies at Dartmouth College, will serve as distinguished scholar leaders of the initiative.

January 8, 2018  

Two Arctic institutes, one at Dartmouth and the other in Iceland—each a legacy of the renowned polar explorer Vilhjálmur Stefansson—were destined to have shared interests, and through an endowed wish, have become important collaborators.

The most recent demonstration of the collaboration between the Institute of Arctic Studies at the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth and the Stefansson Arctic Institute in Iceland, was support for a new interdisciplinary Arctic Research Centre (CER ARCTIC) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (AUB)—the first of its kind in Spain.

The “Week of the Arctic” in Fairbanks, Alaska, May 8-14, 2017, highlighted the United States as an Arctic nation and culminated in the historic handover of the Arctic Council Chairmanship from the U.S. to Finland. Opening the week, Dartmouth and the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) hosted a daylong workshop, sponsored by the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA), to emphasize the importance of the Arctic in research and education exchanges. The launch of the second Fulbright Arctic Initiative program, once again co-led by Dartmouth and UAF, was also announced publicly for the first time.

Dartmouth’s Melody Brown Burkins, Ph.D., Associate Director for Programs and Research at the Dickey Center for International Understanding, welcomed workshop participants and spoke about how the Arctic offered opportunities for increased scientific collaboration and student mobility as well as engagement in global issues of policy and diplomacy.

April 17, 2017

Join a week-long game jam with Dartmouth's Tiltfactor Lab. Never made a game before? Tiltfactor can help. They will provide participants with the tools and resources mneeded. Don't have friends to form a team? They'll have people at Tiltfactor who can be your friends! W

When and where will Tilfactor be jamming? Kickoff April 18th @5pm at the Tiltfactor Lab.,2nd floor BVAC. Participants disperse after the kickoff to make games. The jam won't stop until they reconvene on April 25th. Be there. Do good. Bring your A-game. 

For more information: Game Jam  and Dartmouth Events

September 20, 2016  |  Arctic Deeply and National Geographic

On September 28, 2016, the White House will host science ministers and representatives from indigenous groups to reflect on Arctic science, monitoring and data sharing. In an op-ed in the publication Arctic Deeply, Director of the Institute of Arctic Studies Ross A. Virginia and Univeristy of Alaska Vice Chancellor Michael Sfraga offer their view on the advancement of scientific study in the Arctic.

EurekAlert AAAS  |  March 16, 2016

Warmer, wetter conditions in the Arctic are accelerating the loss of carbon stored in tundra and permafrost soils, creating a potential positive feedback that further boosts global temperatures, a Dartmouth College study finds.

February 18, 2016

To mark the mid-point of the Fulbright Arctic Initiative, Arctic Scholars convened in Oulu, Finland, for a week-long plenary meeting and an Arctic Symposium to share updates on their research projects, discuss research challenges, and receive input for moving forward.

Click here for a video link to the entire public program. 

Fulbright Arctic Scholar Dr. Ross Virginia, Director of the Institute of Arctic Studies at the Dickey Center at Dartmouth, said, “At our inaugural meeting in Iqaluit, we came as individual scholars from the eight Arctic Council states and left as a team focusing our research on the themes of water, energy, health, and infrastructure. We committed our effort to asking multidisciplinary research questions that are relevant to the wellbeing of communities as well as larger scale issues important to the Arctic Council such as climate change, energy policy, and the health of the Arctic Ocean and freshwaters."

January 12, 2016  |  Dartmouth Now

Lauren Culler, a postdoctoral fellow and outreach coordinator at the Institute of Arctic Studies at the Dickey Center, is about to leave for Antarctica with four high school students from across the country. The 2016 Joint Antarctic School Expedition is a 10-day educational trip led by the Institute of Arctic Studies and the Chilean government funded by the National Science Foundation. 

The Washington Post published a story about one student, Andrea Mares, from Loudoun Academy of Science in Virginia. Read about her and the JASE program coordinated by the Institute of Arctic Studies.

August 26, 2015 |  Dartmouth Now

Updated September 3, 2015

On August 31, President Barack Obama is traveling to Anchorage to participate in the Conference on Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Engagement and Resilience (GLACIER). Myers Family Professor of Environmental Science Ross Virginia, director of the Institute of Arctic Studies will be there along with Secretary of State John Kerry and foreign ministers of the eight countries that belong to the Arctic Council—Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States—as well as delegates from more than a dozen Arctic Council observer states.

“I’m particularly excited to hear what President Obama has to say about the Arctic. This is an important opportunity to share with the American people why we care about Alaska as part of the Arctic," says Virginia, who is also co-lead scholar for the Fulbright Arctic Initiative.