As the Director of ENRI, I would like to welcome you to our web page and to the University of Alaska Anchorage.  Our unit has been busy participating in several new research and outreach activities including the International Polar Year (IPY), the Alaska Form on the Environment, and the planning of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) for Alaska along with Phase Three of the Alaska EPSCoR program. 

We have two new IPY projects (Drs. J Welker, B Sveinbjornsson & P Sullivan) that are addressing how, why and the consequences of shrub increases in northern Alaska and a project examining the Pan Arctic responses of plants and soils to long- term warming experiments as part of the International Tundra Experiment (ITEX). Two new postdoctoral scientists (Drs. Lina Taneva & Robert Pattison) are contributing to these studies at Toolik Lake, AK and Thule, Greenland  These IPY projects complement other new activities at ENRI including the measuring and monitoring freshwater lakes in south central AK, the Boreal Forest Observatory and new studies on the causes and consequences of invasive species expansion in Alaska.

ENRI is contributing to the Phase 3 UA EPSCoR program by addressing processes governing plant-microbe with studies by Dr. Jeff Welker and Ken Tape. In addition, Dr. Matt Carlson and James Sowerwine are investigating the effects of Melilotus alba (an invasive non-native species) on Salix alaxensis var. longistylis and other plants in South Central and Interior Alaska.

Draft ENRI Strategic Plan (October 2007)

The Environment and Natural Resource Institute (ENRI) at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) has created a Strategic Plan that delineates a revised mission and vision including the incorporation of UAA faculty fellows into the unit and the appointment of federal and state agency scientists as ENRI Affiliates.  This revised approach and committment will allow ENRI to serve the greater UAA and Anchorage intellectual and land management community while balancing fundamental and applied research.  ENRI research is designed to address pressing issues in the north including climate and land use changes and the cascading consequences to ecosystem services and society responses.