NNA Community Newsletter

September 2025 Issue

• Save the Date: 2026 NNA Annual Community Meeting
• Upcoming NNA-CO Learn & Connect Series Events
• Arctic Data Center September 2025 Collaborator Highlight: Navigating the New Arctic
• Recording Available: Information Session on the National Plan for Arctic Research
• NNA Project Highlight: Electric Vehicles in the Arctic (EVITA) - Interactions with Cold Weather, Microgrids, People, and Policy
• Upcoming Events

Save the Date: 2026 NNA Annual Community Meeting

The NNA-CO is excited to announce that the 2026 NNA Annual Community Meeting will be held in Fairbanks, Alaska during September 15–17, 2026. While we have hosted our meetings in spring for the past two years, we decided to shift to a different timing next year. In addition to this NNA community gathering, we will also be offering a range of both virtual and smaller in-person gatherings during the months ahead. Our list of upcoming events can be found here, where even more events will be added and announced in the coming weeks.

Upcoming NNA-CO Learn & Connect Series Events

Gen Z Voices on Climate & Mental Health: A Panel Discussion

Oct 23, 2025  |  10:00-11:00am AKT / 12:00-1:00pm MT / 2:00-3:00pm ET

Join us for an engaging conversation exploring the intersection of climate change, mental health, and Indigenous perspectives, featuring two members of the Gen Z Climate Mental Health Network. This interactive session will feature a panel discussion and Q&A with youth voices reflecting on their lived experiences, challenges, and hopes for the future. This event is designed especially for Arctic community members and researchers studying the impacts of climate change on Indigenous communities. Together, we will reflect on the role of mental health in navigating climate challenges and the importance of uplifting youth voices in shaping a more resilient future. Register here.

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.

Arctic Data Center September 2025 Collaborator Highlight: Navigating the New Arctic

The Arctic Data Center recently featured the NNA initiative and the NNA Community Office in their collaborator highlight series. Read the blog post here to learn more about our work and that of several NNA projects.

Recording Available: Information Session on the National Plan for Arctic Research

The NNA-CO, together with the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC) Secretariat and the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS), hosted an information session on September 18 about the Arctic Research Plan and how it is being updated for 2027-2031. Attendees heard from several speakers about the process for updating the five-year national Arctic Research plan, how input can be contributed, what kinds of input IARPC is seeking, as well as upcoming opportunities to participate in focused topic discussions. The session recording can be viewed on IARPC Collaborations’ public event page.

NNA Project Highlight

Electric Vehicles in the Arctic (EVITA) - Interactions with Cold Weather, Microgrids, People, and Policy

The landscape of much of Alaska is a quilting of tundra, boreal forest, and wetlands tacked down by the stitching of serpentine creeks and rivers. This is the real Alaska highway system — navigable waters and overland routes free of roads and powerlines, accessible by snowmachine once the rivers freeze, and where many Alaskan communities are nestled. This is also where a group of University of Alaska researchers are working with community partners in Galena and Kotzebue to understand the challenges and potential for electric vehicles (EVs) in their Electric Vehicles in the Arctic (EVITA) - Interactions with Cold Weather, Microgrids, People, and Policy project. 

EVITA began with a planning phase giving university engineering, social science, and economics researchers an opportunity to meet and strengthen relationships with Tribes, utilities, municipal leaders, school districts, taxi drivers, and other community members in rural Alaska, and to discover the research needs around EVs. Responding to concerns raised in community meetings about local EV maintenance, the university and community partners developed a pilot crash course in automotive electronics and EVs, which was well received by participants from both communities in its initial offering this summer. Project work underway examines vehicle use, potential electrical grid impacts, and the economics of transitioning to electrified transportation in rural Alaska. An electric snow machine has arrived in Kotzebue (with one planned for Galena as well), and data will be collected on the cold-weather energy use of these and other EVs in Alaska to inform these deeper analyses.

Article submitted by the EVITA team.

EV Maintenance training for EVITA held at the University of Alaska Anchorage in August 2025.

Upcoming Events

• Gen Z Voices on Climate & Mental Health: A Panel Discussion
• October 23, 2025 | 10:00-11:00am AKT



• 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