NNA Community Newsletter

October 2025 Issue

• NNA Research Experience for Undergraduate Students
• NNA-CO Learn & Connect Series
• Call for AK STEAM Newsletter Items
• Upcoming Opportunities with NNA-CO Partner Organizations
• How to Help Survivors of Western Alaska Storm
• NNA Project Highlight: Interactions of natural and social systems with climate change, globalization, and infrastructure development in the Arctic (NNA Fennoscandia)
• Upcoming Events

NNA Research Experience for Undergraduate Students

The Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) Research Experience for Undergraduate Students (REU) is a paid research program designed to provide Alaska community college and university undergraduate students with an authentic research experience with Arctic community priorities at the center. This hybrid research experience focuses on exploring Indigenous and western science methods of studying how a changing climate impacts Arctic communities.

Call for Students: Do you know of any Alaskan undergraduate students who would be interested in this opportunity? Please share this information with them:

• NNA REU website for more information
• Application form
• Sign up for application deadline reminders
• Sign up for an information session on October 30, 2025

Applications are due by Wednesday, November 19, 2025 at 11:59pm MT.

Call for Mentors: Are you interested in mentoring students at the Alaska Forum in Anchorage, AK in February 2026? We’re seeking mentors to guide 2–3 undergraduate students (as a group) as they engage in hands-on, community-connected Arctic research! Mentors will receive a $500 stipend and conference registration (travel costs not included). If interested, please reach out to alicia.christensen@colorado.edu. 

NNA-CO Learn & Connect Series

Dinayetr – Our Breath, Our Belief System: A Guide for Caring for Ourselves and Our Communities

Nov 13, 2025 | 10:00-11:00am AKT / 12:00-1:00pm MT / 2:00-3:00pm ET

How can we create communities of care that sustain both ourselves and those around us? This workshop invites participants to explore Indigenous wisdom, healing-centered engagement, and practices that foster resilience, belonging, and connection. Drawing on the knowledge of Elders and ancestral teachings, we will reflect on how stress, trauma, and the pace of modern life affect our ability to learn, connect, and thrive. Together, we’ll discuss strategies to move from reactivity to proactive care, and how organizations and communities can reimagine spaces where people not only survive, but flourish. Our guest speaker will be Dr. LaVerne Xilegg Demientieff (Deg Xit’an [Dene]). Register here.

Call for AK STEAM Newsletter Items

The NNA-CO is seeking opportunities to share in our AK STEAM newsletter! Help us share Alaska and Arctic-focused opportunities and resources for educators in science, technology, engineering, arts and math. Submit opportunities here by November 7 to be included in the Fall 2025 edition.



Upcoming Opportunities with NNA-CO Partner Organizations

Applications Open for Data Science Training Hosted by the Arctic Data Center

Applications are now open for the Arctic Data Center’s Spring 2026 course Reproducible Approaches to Arctic Research Using R. This FREE training is held on Zoom (in Pacific Time) and will be their only training of 2026, so don’t miss the chance to apply.

Apply here. Applications close October 31, 2025.



Join PSECCO Online for a ‘How to Write a Stellar Cover Letter and CV’ Webinar

November 20, 2025 | 8:00am AKT / 10:00am MT / 12:00pm ET

Are you interested in learning how to craft an effective application for your next career move? What makes a cover letter, CV, or resume stand out? The Polar Science Early Career Community Office (PSECCO) is excited to host Jimena Ugaz from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) Human Resources Team for a discussion on effective cover letters, key differences between CVs and resume, and utilizing LinkedIn for job searching. Learn more and register here. 

Attend a Social for Polar ECRs at the 2025 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Meeting

December 17, 2025 at 6.30pm to 8:30pm CDT

Join other polar early career researchers at the AGU meeting in New Orleans, LA to network, learn about how to get involved in PSECCO, Polar Impact, and the United States Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (USAPECS), and eat delicious NOLA food! Space is limited at this event to the first 100 people who register. Please do not register if you are not 100% certain you will attend. Learn more and register here.

How to Help Survivors of Western Alaska Storm

As you may have seen in our special issue newsletter sent on October 17, ex-typhoon Halong brought widespread flooding and devastation to Western Alaska in early October, with hundreds of residents displaced. This first person account from Jeron Joseph from Kwigillingok bravely shares a personal story of survival, one of many.

Here’s how you can help the survivors. The Alaska Community Foundation, an Anchorage-based nonprofit, is partnering with organizations serving people throughout the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region, Norton Sound, and the Northwest Arctic to distribute financial support to affected communities for immediate relief, recovery support, and long-term resilience, including disaster preparedness initiatives.

You can donate to their Western Alaska Disaster Relief 2025 Fund here.

Those of us at the NNA Community Office wish to express our support to the many communities across the impacted region. Thank you for considering a donation to this important fund.

NNA Project Highlight

Interactions of natural and social systems with climate change, globalization, and infrastructure development in the Arctic (NNA Fennoscandia)

The NNA Fennoscandia project is a transdisciplinary, collaborative research project that integrates reindeer herders in northern Finland and Norway with three science teams (anthropology, biotic systems, and earth systems science) to examine questions of local interest and scientific merit relating to Arctic change. This project has eight PIs in the United States and co-PIs and researchers in Finland, Norway, UK and France. The project takes a convergence science approach that enhances research through interdisciplinary teams of scientists and stakeholders working together to push the scope of scientific inquiry beyond the typical boundaries of their respective fields, to foster mutual learning and novel collaborations, and to develop a transdisciplinary language and knowledge consolidation to solve specific problems and respond to demands from society.

Following a community workshop in 2024, several research threads were identified that have been the focus of this project’s transdisciplinary work. One thread pertains to snow structure and warming winters as they affect reindeer herd structure. The second involves mapping plant nutrient concentrations across the landscape to better understand reindeer foraging behaviors. The third relates to industrial development impacts on reindeer migration routes. The research questions and methodologies have been co-developed with reindeer herders.

NNA Fennoscandia project team at a project meeting in July, 2025.

Article submitted by John Ziker, PI of Fennoscandia.

Upcoming Events

• Dinayetr - Our Breath, Our Belief System: A Guide for Caring for Ourselves and Our Communities
• November 13, 2025 | 10:00-11:00am AKT

• 2026 NNA Annual Community Meeting
• September 15-17, 2026