About us

On January 5, 2009 I was privileged to become the first Sustainability Director at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. I completed my Interdisciplinary Ph.D. through the University of Alaska Fairbanks and graduated in May of 2009. My academic work has focused on the interaction between humans and their environment, specifically on the influences on human perception of change, and on our willingness to adapt. This continues to be my passion, as well as finding ways to motivate people to increase adaptive capacity.

My dissertation is titled “The Role of Social Paradigm in Human Perception and Response to Environmental Change.” My research led naturally to working as Sustainability Director here at UAA because it examines the interactions between the biophysical environment and human social systems, which is also the focus of sustainability.

Although the degree was issued by Fairbanks, I completed my course work and research here at UAA. The last year and a half of work on my dissertation was supported by a fellowship provided by the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) through the National Science Foundation. Prior to receiving the fellowship, I worked as a Research Associate for UAA’s Resilience and Adaptive Management (RAM) Group for about two years. Working for the RAM Group allowed me to participate in research investigating the perceptions that people living in small communities in the Norton Sound area have of their subsistence resources and water. Additionally, I focused on mining research while working with the RAM Group.