Tourism in Alaska is a growth industry, with much of the revenue generated below the Arctic Circle. But the Arctic’s unique natural environment and tourists' desire to see the Arctic before it changes – sometimes called “last chance tourism” – is drawing more and more travelers above the Arctic Circle. The increase in nature-based tourism offers Arctic communities around the world development opportunities, but also risks to community and environmental systems.
News at ISER
Welcome to the ISER News and Announcements page, your hub for timely updates, industry insights, and the latest organizational highlights. Here, you can stay informed about upcoming events, important deadlines, and exciting achievements, all aimed at keeping the ISER community connected and engaged.
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Ralph Townsend, ISER director, gave presentations on Alaska’s economy and the state budget (PPTX, 701KB) to the Board of Directors of the Alaska Federation of Natives, CIRI’s Tikahtnu Forum and the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce in early May.
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Dual enrollment programs provide access to college-level courses to high school students prior to graduation, often helping students become more successful in high school and easing their path to college. Between 2008 and 2017, University of Alaska (UA) dual enrollment programs experienced an 85% increase in student enrollment and, among those who graduated from high school, 41% went on to attend a UA institution within a year.
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A new study of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) program shows that an additional $1,000 PFD decreases the probability of an Alaskan child being obese by as much as 4.5 percentage points, translating to about a 22% reduction in obesity.
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David Riley, a Ph.D. student at the University of Southampton, UK, will talk about the protocol he’s developed for comprehensive gas hydrate development in Alaska at a lunchtime talk Thursday, May 30, in ISER's conference room. The protocol summarizes data from a range of sources and the positions of different stakeholder groups into one framework, allowing them to be more easily understood by any decision maker.
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Sarah Andrew, new director of University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Bristol Bay Campus, invited ISER’s Dayna DeFeo to deliver the keynote talk at the Bristol Bay Campus annual summit in Dillingham last month. Andrew called upon DeFeo, who directs ISER’s Center for Alaska Education Policy Research, to share research findings on how to better serve rural Alaska students, and to lead a discussion addressing difficult issues of equity, access, and privilege.
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ISER’s Diane Hirshberg is working with partners at Cook Inlet Tribal Council (CITC) on ways to strengthen culturally responsive early education.
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For the last 37 years, Alaska residents have received a Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), but it is only recently that researchers have begun to analyze the effect of the PFD on the socio-economic well-being of Alaskans. In a new paper, Mouhcine Guettabi, associate professor of economics and ISER faculty, summarizes the research, including his own, on what is known of the PFD’s effect on employment, consumption, income inequality, health, and crime.
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"Risky Business" economic experiment studies how markets communicate environmental risk to consumers
For a long time cold weather and geographic isolation protected Alaska from invasive species, but globalization and a changing climate are bringing increased risk. Environmental managers tasked with preventing the spread of invasive species (IS) may do everything they can to prevent the introduction, but travelers, tourists, and companies moving products to Alaska cause IS risk that is difficult for managers to control. Dr.
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Visiting Fulbright Scholar and Doctor of Law, Elena Gladun, will give an overview of recent educational and research projects in Siberia and Yamal regions of the Russian Arctic, the most effective supports for sustainable development, and Indigenous rights and interests at a lunchtime talk on Friday, May 17, in ISER’s conference room at noon.