News and Announcements

Very different policies led to a reduction in state government in Kansas than what is driving a reduction in state government in Alaska, according to ISER Director Ralph Townsend in an interview for Alaska Public Media. But that doesn’t mean Alaska will be spared the economic impacts. 

Anchorage Climate Action Plan collaborators, including UAA and ISER faculty, are sponsoring a lunchtime talk Friday, August 9 in the ISER conference room, by Illinois Research Climatologist Ashish Sharma on how the most vulnerable in urban settings can be better protected from climate-related health challenges.  As extreme weather becomes the norm, the number of heat-related deaths around the world continues to rise, causing the media to coin the phrase, “heat, the silent killer.”&

This summer, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game closed two lakes in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough to control the spread of the freshwater invasive plant Elodea by floatplanes and boats. Clean-up efforts for the two lakes are predicted to cost $1 million.

ISER’s Jennifer Schmidt, Assistant Professor of Natural Resource Management and Policy, is working with researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Alaska Center for Energy and Power and College of Engineering and Mines to examine food, energy and water (FEW) security issues in rural Alaska and determine how small-scale renewable energy might ease the issues. 

ISER's Mouhcine Guettabi gave a presentation on the economic impacts of Governor Dunleavy's veto of $409M from the state budget at the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce's "Make it Monday," telling the audience that employment losses from cuts will exceed any gains that have been realized during Alaska's fragile economic recovery of the last few months. 

ISER's Mouhcine Guettabi provides context on the Governor Dunleavy's vetoes and their potential impact on the Alaska economy in a series of tweets, showing that just the University of Alaska direct cuts, without accounting for all other line item vetoes (Medicaid, K-12, seniors, debt reimbursement, etc) essentially pushes the Alaska economy back into a recession.

School superintendents are all too familiar with the costs of teacher turnover that deplete educational resources and challenge student achievement. A new paper, by Dayna DeFeo, director of ISER’s Center for Alaska Education Policy Research (CAEPR) and Trang Tran, ISER research professional, looks at how superintendents in Alaska’s rural districts – where teacher turnover is particularly pronounced – are working to address turnover by integrating a place-conscious approach in their hiring practices.