NNA Community Newsletter


August 2022 Issue

  • NNA Annual Community Meeting Update
  • Tomorrow: NNA Collaboration Accelerator Meeting
  • NNA-CO Guide for Supporting NNA Communication
  • Kenneth Toovak & Max Brewer Memorial Research Award
  • Call for Potential Contributors: The Arctic Speaks to Me Anthology
  • NNA Project Highlight: Arctic Urban Risks and Adaptations (AURA)
  • Upcoming Events

NNA Proposal Solicitation Reminder: The next NNA proposal solicitation deadline is February 8, 2023. See solicitation details here.


Tip: Review and familiarize yourself with the National Science Foundation’s Principles for Conducting Research in the Arctic, and consider how any new proposal you may be a part of is incorporating these principles.

NNA Annual Community Meeting Update

The NNA-CO team is actively planning the 2022 NNA Annual Community Meeting, which will take place November 15-17 in Anchorage, AK and online everywhere. The expanded meeting website and agenda will be available soon, so please watch your inbox for more details.

Tomorrow: NNA Collaboration Accelerator Meeting

August 31, 2022 - 2-3pm Eastern / 12-1pm Mountain / 10-11am Alaska Virtual


What is your dream research collaboration? Are you hoping to broaden your NNA community connections? The NNA-CO invites you to the Broader Impacts Network (BIN) collaboration accelerator. We will use the Topia platform to break out into small groups facilitated by NNA project leaders. Groups will be organized by geographic region and research interests across diverse knowledge systems and career levels. The focus of these breakout groups will be to explore ways to leverage resources and efforts across projects.  


Register here.

NNA-CO Guide for Supporting NNA Communication

Are you curious about how the NNA-CO can support your project team’s outreach and communication efforts? Click on the flyer below to learn more!

Kenneth Toovak & Max Brewer Memorial Research Award

UIC Science recently announced a request for proposals for the Kenneth Toovak & Max Brewer Memorial graduate student and/or postdoc research award, which will provide a stipend to support all field-based logistics in and/or around Utqiaġvik, Alaska. Successful applicants must outline how the applicant will establish a successful career in Arctic science by fostering meaningful collaborations and enabling actionable science. Research priorities include:

  1. Food, water, and energy security
  2. Environmental security
  3. Socio-environmental impact of climate change
  4. Sustainable development


Application deadline: January 31, 2023


Click the image to the left to learn more.


Call for Potential Contributors: The Arctic Speaks to Me Anthology

The University of Colorado Boulder CIRES Education & Outreach team is creating The Arctic Speaks to Me, a community anthology to help tell the Arctic story through the eyes of the polar research community. The editors are interested in the identity work of the polar research community and how to detangle the complex relationships we all have with the Arctic and what this means to our global community. Possible submissions for this book can be photography, poetry, free-prompt writing, blog entries, music sheets, small words and phrases to help us explore themes around the Arctic.


Learn more and submit your potential contribution here.

NNA Project Highlight

Arctic Urban Risks and Adaptations (AURA): a co-production framework for addressing multiple changing environmental hazards


Climate change is increasing the vulnerability of arctic urban communities to natural hazards such as unstable permafrost, wildfire, and rain-in-winter events. These hazards put residents and property at risk and impose economic costs. Households, businesses, and governments must adapt to these multiple co-occurring hazards, which may have compound or off-setting interactions. The Arctic Urban Risks and Adaptations (AURA) project seeks to explore how permafrost thaw, wildfire, and rain-in-winter events have changed and will change in the future. The project team has worked with residents, government agencies, and organizations to spatially model these hazards at a resolution that is meaningful for them. As part of their outreach efforts, the team worked to produce a storymap about these hazards, e.g. how the ground temperature regime changes and near-surface permafrost degrades around Fairbanks. Team members have also developed an ArcGIS app so residents of Anchorage, Fairbanks, Matanuska-Susitna, and Kenai Peninsula in Alaska and Whitehorse, Yukon can explore their wildfire hazard. The project team plans to work with stakeholders to develop risk maps and scenarios of an adaptive management plan that can be utilized by residents and communities to make informed decisions to reduce their risks and develop sustainable plans.


Project PIs are Jen Schmidt (University of Alaska Anchorage), Dmitry Nicolsky (University of Alaska Fairbanks), and Jim Powell (University of Alaska Southeast). Project stakeholders include Municipality of Anchorage, Fairbanks North Star Borough, City of Whitehorse Yukon, Government of Yukon, Sustainable Earth Research LLC, Anchorage Waterways Council, Soka University of America, Alaska Fire Science Consortium, Cold Climate Housing Research Center, and Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory.  



Photo: Undergraduate Alex Britz presenting wildfire research to residents of Anchorage in June 2022.

We will feature different NNA projects in each newsletter. 
Upcoming Events

Broader Impacts Network August Meeting

  • August 31, 2022 - 2-3pm ET / 12-1pm MT / 10-11am AKT

NNA Annual Community Meeting (meeting website)

  • November 15-17, 2022

Planning Virtual Experience Tours workshop

  • Fall 2022 (exact date TBD)

AGU Session on “Convergent Research in the Arctic: Addressing Complex Societal Challenges through Action-Oriented Coastal and Ocean Science” (OS006)

  • December 12-16, 2022 (exact date/time TBD)

AGU Session on “Arctic Education & Outreach - Effective ways of engaging diverse learners in Arctic science” (ED004)

  • December 12-16, 2022 (exact date/time TBD)
We welcome submissions for items to be considered for upcoming NNA Community Newsletters or the NNA News page. 
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Copyright © 2021 CIRES, All rights reserved.

The Navigating the New Arctic Community Office (NNA-CO) is jointly implemented by the University of Colorado Boulder, Alaska Pacific University, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The NNA-CO is supported through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. National Science Foundation (Award #2040729). 


Contact us: contact@nna-co.org