NNA Community Newsletter

January 2026 Issue

• NNA International Community Meeting at ASSW 2026
• POLARIS Documentary Film "Cumikluten (Pay Attention)"
• AK STEAM Newsletter Seeks Submissions
• Arctic Together Research Showcase at the Alaska Forum of the Environment
• Fostering Indigenous-led Research Convergence Working Group Mini-series Podcast Episode 3 Available Now
• New Course on Navigating Actionable Science in the Arctic
• NNA Project Highlight - Resilience and Adaptation to the Effects of Permafrost Degradation Induced Coastal Erosion
• Upcoming Events

NNA International Community Meeting at ASSW 2026

March 30, 2026 | 4:00-6:00 CEST | Hybrid



Are you attending Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) 2026? If so, we invite you to join us for a two-hour NNA International Community Meeting on Monday, March 30. This meeting will focus on highlighting international research partnerships in the context of mobilising data and knowledge for societal benefit. NNA projects will showcase their work, and discuss how they are approaching international collaboration in the Arctic, working across knowledge systems and disciplines, building partnerships with Indigenous Peoples, and/or advancing ethical and equitable data management practices. Other international initiatives working on these topics are invited to participate and share to promote learning across programs. This community meeting will also coincide with the Arctic Observing Summit (AOS), which is a large part of this year's ASSW. Therefore, we're additionally inviting perspectives on how NNA research is contributing to Arctic observing systems.



We invite you to submit a short abstract to contact@nna-co.org if you would like to present during this session. If you are attending ASSW in another capacity, we encourage you to attend this session and share it with others who may be interested.

POLARIS Documentary Film "Cumikluten (Pay Attention)"

The POLARIS (Pursuing Opportunities for Long-Term Arctic Resilience for Infrastructure & Society) team is very pleased to announce the release of their documentary film, "Cumikluten (Pay Attention).” This 35-minute film, produced by Ryan Peterson, documents the urgent and devastating challenges faced by Alaskan communities, including environmental stress, cultural loss, subsistence harvesting, and socioeconomic vulnerability. The film also highlights the knowledge co-production efforts that this interdisciplinary team has collaborated on with local communities since 2020 to identify ways to enhance community resilience. The team invites viewers to watch "Cumikluten (Pay Attention)" to better understand this work and the critical issues facing these communities. Watch the full documentary on the POLARIS YouTube channel.

AK STEAM Newsletter Seeks Submissions

Help the NNA-CO share Alaska and Arctic-focused opportunities and resources with K-12 educators in science, technology, engineering, arts and math! The AK STEAM Newsletter is published quarterly and the next edition will be released in February. You can submit opportunities and resources to be shared here. 

Arctic Together Research Showcase at the Alaska Forum of the Environment

The NNA-CO invites in-person Alaska Forum attendees to join an interactive research showcase on February 5, 2026 from 3:30-4:30 pm (AKT). 



The first half of this session will include presentations by undergraduate students from the NNA Research Experience for Undergraduates program. The remaining time has been reserved for brief highlight talks from NNA researchers who are attending the Alaska Forum. If you are interested in participating and sharing your work during this session please contact alicia.christensen@colorado.edu.

Fostering Indigenous-led Research Convergence Working Group Mini-series Podcast Episode 3 Available Now

The Fostering Indigenous-led Research (FILR) Convergence Working Group (CWG) is one of three Convergence Working Groups that the NNA-CO supported from June 2023 to May 2025. The FILR group focused on what Indigenous-led research is now, what it can look like, and next steps to creating research that is Indigenous-led. One of the final products of the FILR CWG is a podcast mini-series, of which this is the third episode. This episode is hosted by Dr. Margaret Anamaq Rudolf, with guests Stacey Kangipneq Lucason and Warren Miaraq Jones. This episode focuses on Indigenous-led conservation efforts and why it should be a focus in everyone’s conservation efforts. 

New Course on Navigating Actionable Science in the Arctic

This free and open online course co-taught by Kristin Timm and Margaret Rudolf from the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks helps researchers bridge theory, practice, and experience to conduct actionable and ethical science in the Arctic. Experienced instructors and interviews with on-the-ground practitioners capture the challenges of putting theory to practice.

Management agencies and funding partners increasingly call for actionable science—science that can be directly applied to achieve specific goals. This course supports researchers, from early to late-career, to learn how to navigate actionable science through the lifecycle of a research project, from contexts and inputs to implementation and finally outcomes. You can access the course here. 

NNA Project Highlight

Resilience and Adaptation to the Effects of Permafrost Degradation Induced Coastal Erosion

The NNA PIPER (People, Infrastructure, PErmafrost Resilience) project, a collaboration between Penn State, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Missouri S&T, and University of Idaho, was successfully completed in 2025. One of the outcomes is a high-resolution mapping of infrastructure’s ground settlement and bearing capacity in North Slope Borough, Alaska. This geomechanical modeling and mapping reveal accelerating infrastructure risks from permafrost degradation in northern Alaska. This work, led by Dr. Ziyi Wang, a former PhD student at Penn State, was recently accepted for publication by Communications Earth and Environment. 

Permafrost degradation has caused irreversible damages to Arctic civil infrastructure and threatened Indigenous Arctic communities and broader pan-Arctic economies. Currently, the lack of community-scale, geomechanics-based mapping of Arctic infrastructure geohazards hinders effective local infrastructure planning. Led by Dr. Ming Xiao, civil engineering professor at PSU, and Dr. Dmitry Nicolsky, geophysics assistant professor at UAF, the team developed a novel framework that integrates physics-constrained geotechnical models with a process-based ground thermal model to assess the 21st century changes in thaw settlement and bearing capacity of civil infrastructure foundations at a 30-m spatial resolution. They found that settlement is accelerating and bearing capacity is decreasing nonlinearly at regional and local scales. By mid-century, less than 10% of infrastructure in northern Alaska is projected to be at risk; with a transition window between 2060 and 2080. During this period, infrastructure risk will increase sharply, and most infrastructures are projected to be at risk. The results underscore the urgent need for proactive adaptation strategies to protect Arctic infrastructure from permafrost degradation-induced geohazards. 

Top figure: Changes in bearing capacity in four coastal communities in northern Alaska by the 2090s. a, Projected bearing capacity in Utqiaġvik. b, Projected bearing capacity in Wainwright. c, Projected bearing capacity in Point Lay. d, Projected bearing capacity in Kaktovik. Bearing capacity is calculated under RCP8.5 climate forcing. Box plots show the median (center line), interquartile range (25^th to 75^th percentile, box), and whiskers extending to 1.5 times the interquartile range.



Bottom figure: Civil infrastructure at risk due to permafrost degradation on Alaska’s Arctic Coastal Plain over the 21^st century. a, Infrastructure risk assessed under RCP8.5. b, Infrastructure risk assessed under RCP4.5.

Article submitted by Ming Xiao, PI of NNA PIPER.

Upcoming Events

• NNA-CO at ASSW 2026: NNA International Community Meeting
• March 30, 2026 | 4:00-6:00 pm CEST
• 2026 NNA Annual Community Meeting
• September 15-17, 2026
• Arctic Together Research Showcase at Alaska Forum of the Environment
• February 5, 2026 | 3:30-4:30 pm AKT | Dena'ina Center